Enter the Future
by Glamourcat
Summary: Set in the Movieverse. The Brotherhood brings in a new ally to help rescue Magneto from his plastic prison forcing the X-Men to accept help from an unknown secret ops team.
1. Default Chapter

Title: X-Men, Enter the Future  
  
Part: 1/17  
  
Author: Glamourcat; Glamourcat@lycos.com  
  
Date: 11/19/00 11:18pm-11/19/00 11:09pm-12/14/00 11:09pm(look how long it took me to write all this!)  
  
Author's Notes: This takes place in an alternate universe parallel to the X- Men Movieverse. That way I won't screw up their continuity and they won't mess up mine. Special thanks to Kitty for beta reading the mess this once was! She's the best of the best of beta readers!  
  
Rating: PG13, some violence, romance, m/f pairing of Logan/Original character  
  
Disclaimers--All the X-Men and Marvel characters belong to Stan Lee and Marvel Comics. MTV and the Real World belong to the C.E.O. of MTV Productions. Any other actual stores or products I may have mentioned to add background should be glad I'm giving them free advertising. Glow, Mez, Badlands, Whirlwind, DreamWeb, Shield (and their secret identities) and Future of Technology Laboratories (F.T.L.) belong to me. Dr. Maxwell DeLeon is my creation although Xia C. McCammon is credited with the inspiration of the character.  
  
Summary: Set in the Movieverse. The Brotherhood brings in a new ally to help rescue Magneto from his plastic prison forcing the X-Men to accept help from an unknown secret ops team.  
  
  
  
An unknown woman sang an off-key country song on the smoke-filled stage. The place was crowded and no one was paying any attention to the singer or her band. Waitresses wove in and out of the Saturday night horde that frequented the roadside bar. Pool games progressed as others watched various sports games from the many TVs scattered around the bar.  
  
A scruffy man wearing a black t-shirt, yellow flannel, brown leather jacket, blue jeans, and boots waited his turn at one of the pool tables. Standing with pool cue in hand and lit cigar in his mouth, he surveyed the room idly. Half turning at the sound of a cue cracking into the balls on the table, listened to them clack against each other and the sidewalls as they scattered.  
  
The swinging doors to the bar flung open someone entered. A few people looked up from what they were doing to take in the newcomer, then went back to their business, while others were distracted and kept staring. The scruffy man was in the latter group of people.  
  
He watched her stand in the doorway with her hands on her hips as she assessed the room she'd just entered. She was tall; he figured close to six feet. She wore a skin-tight hunter green sleeveless jumpsuit- that appeared to be made of some sort of vinyl or leather- and knee-high boots a paler shade of green. This woman wore sunglasses at night and had neon orange hair.  
  
She put her hands down by her sides and began to walk. no, slink to the bartender's station. Men's heads turned to follow her swagger and swaying hips as she made her way to the bar. Those lined up on the side of the bar parted as she reached the counter.  
  
"One beer please. Anything domestic, not imported," she requested. The bartender filled her request, popping the cap for her and handing her a green bottle. The man to her right tried to pay for it, but she ignored him and slipped the bartender the cash herself. She turned and glided away toward an empty round seat behind the pool table the scruffy man stood waiting at.  
  
He eyed her appraisingly as she walked by. He smiled as she returned his gaze, the dark lenses on her glasses sweeping down his lean, muscled frame and then back up to his face. She gave him one small Mona Lisa smile and then promptly ignored him as she sat with her back to the room. She took a swig from her beer and put her boots up on the chair next to her, draping one arm over the back of her seat.  
  
He licked his lips, leaned his cue against the table, and moved to follow her to her table, but two other men beat him there first.  
  
"Hey there pretty," a tall, thin trucker made the first move. "You ah, mind some company?"  
  
"Depends on the company. If it's you, then I highly object," she answered.  
  
The other man laughed at his friend's rejection and made as if to sit down next to her. She snatched the chair out from under him by hooking a boot under the leg and pulling it towards her. She grinned as his ass made a resounding smack on the floor.  
  
"It was a collective 'you', meaning you chubby, and your over-skinny friend here," she informed them as she stood.  
  
"Hey, look out!" The scruffy man called to her.  
  
She whirled and brought her bottle down over the top of the skinny man's head and punched him in the stomach as he staggered." While he was doubled over, she kneed him in the ribs and shoved him to the floor. 'Chubby' had gotten up in time to see his companion's beating.  
  
"You bitch!" He yelled as he charged towards her, swinging back his fist.  
  
She sidestepped him, sticking out one foot to trip him. He stumbled and took a few faltering steps in the direction of the scruffy man  
  
'Scruffy' closed the gap and clocked 'Chubby' over the shoulders with his fist causing the man to fall flat and stay down. He looked to her. She put a hand to her face and pushed her sunglasses back up her nose.  
  
"Thanks. It's nice to see chivalry isn't dead yet," she said as she passed him on her way to the door. "It's getting so a woman can't even enjoy a beer and some quiet anymore."  
  
He put one hand lightly on her wrist to pause her for a second. "Don't I at least get a name?"  
  
She turned to him for a moment and then answered, "Name's Glow. Do I get yours in exchange?"  
  
He smiled at the mention of her unusual name and gave an unusual name of his own. "Name's Wolverine."  
  
Glow gave him a crooked smile. "Aren't wolverines related to skunks?"  
  
"They've been known to run off bears and wildcats." He grinned back at her.  
  
"As much as I'd love to stay and chat about the local wildlife, I only stopped in to wet my whistle. I should really be on my way." Glow said as she pulled her arm out of his hand and walked easily to the doors and outside.  
  
"Hey bud." The guy at the pool table Wolverine had been waiting for tapped him on the shoulder. "You know her?"  
  
"Na, never seen her before in my life."  
  
"You want the table now?"  
  
Wolverine looked back at the pool table. "Na, think I've wasted too much time here already. I got places I need to be."  
  
"Suit yourself, buddy."  
  
They half-nodded to each other and moved their separate ways. No one had so much as batted an eye at the brief fight, common as they were in this place. As long as it didn't spread too far, fights were always overlooked.  
  
Wolverine stuck his hands in his pockets and ambled to the doors. He paused outside and briefly glanced around for any sign of the red.no, orange-haired woman. He found no trace of her, and didn't expect to, considering how many cars and trucks were parked in this lot. He walked to his motorcycle then stopped for a moment. He turned around in a quick circle, sniffing the air deeply. "Hmmm. smells strange. Like something's burnt."  
  
He shrugged it off and mounted his bike, kicking it into life. Logan roared out of the bar's parking lot and down the empty Canadian highway. 


	2. Enter the Future Part Two

A two-hour drive brought Wolverine to the mountain turn-off he wanted. He followed the mountain road for a few miles, passing the over-grown driveway once before he found it and steered his bike up the steep hill to the awaiting compound.  
  
Wolverine pulled up in front of the ruin of a massive multi-story laboratory with military-style outbuildings. This was the place that old Chuck had told him about. The place that might have answers about his past and what had happened to him. He cut the engine to his motorcycle and stared at the empty black building.  
  
"Been puttin' this off too long," he whispered. "Got to get it over with sooner or later."  
  
Wolverine dismounted and walked to the front doors of the place. Time had weathered away any sign of resistance to the place. The doors fell apart at his touch and he walked in. He stared everywhere at once, taking in the cracked ceiling tiles and the broken linoleum floors. Whole walls were missing in places and he could see through gaping holes in the ceiling to the floors above. Furniture and equipment lay broken and scattered about in every room, including the main hallway he was walking down. Wolverine reached the end of the long hall and took a deep breath to brace himself for what lay beyond the last set of doors.  
  
Startled, Wolverine stopped. Air flowed through cracks and holes in the walls and ceiling providing him with scent clues of his environment. So far, all he'd smelled was dust and disuse with a slight hint of mold. He sniffed the air again. "What the hell? Something smells burnt, like someone fried a hole in the ozone."  
  
He flattened himself against the wall and slowly pushed open one of the doors to the last room. He didn't see anyone in the great room, so he silently slipped inside. He gradually shut the door behind him and crept into the shadows of the room. Taking inventory around him, Wolverine realized that this was the main laboratory. The room was the entire width and height of the building. Something, an explosion maybe, had crumbled the roof in on itself and he could see the stars of the night sky above him.  
  
"Damn it," a woman's voice cursed softly in the darkness.  
  
A light went on just twelve paces to the northeast of him. He froze and then sunk to his knees to avoid detection. Keeping to the outer wall, he stole over to a better vantage point, one where equipment and fallen rooftop would not block his direct line of sight.  
  
A woman stood with her lantern sitting on top of an old filing cabinet. The drawers were all hanging open and small piles of ash surrounded her. She was tall, wore a skintight green bodysuit with boots, and this time had pale green gloves on her hands as well. She raised a gloved hand to move a lock of bright orange hair out of her eyes.  
  
"Well, well, well," Wolverine murmured. "Look who we have here. Looks like Glow can't find what she came here for either."  
  
"Argh!" Glow grunted in frustration and slammed the drawer shut. The fire-blackened cabinet fell over with the force of her slam. "Damn, damn, and double damn. Everything's been destroyed or taken._only one place left to try."  
  
She paced over to the main computer and stared up at it. "If I can get it working..."  
  
Glow turned to head back to the doors when she caught sight of a man- shaped shadow on the wall. She instantly stiffened. "Who's there?"  
  
Wolverine almost sucked in his breath. He froze in hope that she'd think she was imagining things.  
  
"Come out. The lantern is casting a shadow for you. I know you're there," she called again. "Either you come out, or I start firing."  
  
Wolverine didn't see a firearm on her but didn't want to take that chance. He figured he could subdue her in closer quarters easily if it came to that. The leather jacket clad man took a step out from the pile of rubble he'd been behind.  
  
"Hey, take it easy. It's just me," he told her, approaching with his hands held up. "Remember? The local wildlife?"  
  
"Right. Wolverine."  
  
Glow crossed her arms over her chest in a defensive posture. "What the hell are you doing here? You followed me an awfully long way just to ask for a date."  
  
"Date? I didn't follow you here. You just made better time than I did." Wolverine put his hands down still keeping them where she could see them. "What are you doing here?"  
  
She pushed her sunglasses back up her nose again. "Looking for answers to something that happened a long time ago. I could do that much easier if you'd leave."  
  
"I don't think so. I drove all the way from New York to find this place. I'm not leaving till I find my own set of answers." Wolverine moved toward her.  
  
Glow stepped back for every step he took forward. "Well, I need the time to search alone. You can come back later."  
  
"I don't think so," he said, standing in place, not wanting to chase her any further away.  
  
"Then I'll just have to make you leave." Her voice went icy cold.  
  
"Oh, I'd love to see that."  
  
"Okay," she answered glibly.  
  
Without any warning she bolted towards him with one fist raised. She swung and missed when he pulled back to dodge the blow. However, she'd kept her elbow raised and struck him with that in his chin instead. A swift knee in the stomach and a left cut to his cheek followed before she danced away.  
  
"Not bad," he said, straightening up and cracking his neck. "But you're going to have to do a lot better."  
  
"I'm just warming up."  
  
"Good to hear."  
  
Neither was sure who landed the next blow, but the punches were being distributed fast and furiously immediately afterward. Little by little, Wolverine's greater speed and strength began to show in the fight. He was pushing Glow slowly towards the wall. When Glow finally stumbled backwards over a small pile of debris Wolverine caught both of her wrists in his hands and pinned her to the wall.  
  
"Give up yet?" he asked, his face just inches from her sunglassed eyes.  
  
"You know, it's too bad you're so damned stubborn about all this," she told him.  
  
"Oh? Why?" Wolverine inquired.  
  
"'Cause if you weren't such a jerk, you'd almost be cute," Glow answered.  
  
Her reply caught him slightly off guard, but he grinned smugly to cover. "Flattery isn't going to win you this fight. Do you concede defeat?"  
  
"No. I still have an ace up my sleeve you don't know about," Glow answered cheerfully.  
  
"What's that?"  
  
"About 30,000 volts of electricity."  
  
"What the hell?!" Wolverine let go in alarm and took a step back as Glow became surrounded by a yellow halo. He bared his claws in defense.  
  
"Looks like I'm not the only one with an ace up my sleeve. Are those things made of metal?" she questioned.  
  
Before he could even respond, she raised a hand. Yellow and white energy crackled from her fingertips. "Metal conducts electricity, quite well in fact. Have a nice after-life."  
  
The last thing Wolverine remembered was a lightning bolt flying at him and his body being paralyzed by the electricity she charged through him. 


	3. Enter the Future Part Three

His head pounded. His heartbeat was weak. His pulse was irregular. Wolverine was sore in places he didn't even know he had. Slowly, the man opened his eyes and groaned softly. Small pink strips were appearing in the sky. It was sunrise already. He'd been out for about four hours. What the hell had she done to him?  
  
He slowly sat up, stopping when a brief wave of nausea swept over him. His head cleared after a moment and he finally stood. He stretched, and then looked down at where he'd lain. His sleeping bag was lying underneath his feet crumpled. So was his pillow, so someone must have taken them off his bike. Did Glow do this? Why would she make him comfortable after wishing him a nice after-life and frying him with enough voltage to almost get him there?  
  
"Come on baby, hold out just a little longer. keep talking to me."  
  
He stiffened instantly when he heard her voice. She was still here? He turned to see her sitting in front of the computer's mainframe surrounded by her weird halo. Images flashed across the screen and flickered in and out. Wolverine stared in amazement. She was powering the computer, forcing it to play back files the creators of this place must have thought lost when the CPU shut down with the CPU's shut down.  
  
He took a few cautious steps towards her. Immersed completely in her research, she did not hear him. He got directly behind her and bared the claws of his right hand.  
  
Glow heard the metallic sound of his claws extracting and froze. "You're awake?"  
  
"I heal fast," Wolverine said flatly. "Tell me why I shouldn't give you several new air holes."  
  
"Amazing. You should have slept until the middle of tomorrow. I would have been long gone by then," Glow said almost curiously. "You're Logan aren't you?"  
  
"How did you know that?" He said as he pressed the tips of his claws to her neck.  
  
She swallowed and let her halo fade as she let go of her mutant power. "I've been talking to my friend here."  
  
She motioned slowly to the computer. "Logan, code name Wolverine, special divisions project. Project name, Weapon X. All your medical records are still in here, fragmented, but readable in some spots. The computer's memory was missing a lot."  
  
Wolverine shook straight down to his very core. "This is the place then. Chuck was right."  
  
"We need to talk, Wolverine. Logan," Glow said softly. "I give you my word not to use my powers on you again."  
  
He retracted his claws and stepped back from her. She stood and slowly turned towards him. "I'm so sorry you went through this. If I'd known Future Tech had stolen your name from you too, I'd never have attacked you."  
  
"Future Tech? What are you talking about?" Wolverine shook his head. "I'm confused."  
  
"This building was owned by a company called Future of Technology Laboratories. This particular compound was rented out to another scientific research group, so their hand wasn't in this directly but. Oh G- d, I'm so sorry," Glow almost whispered. "I can't imagine what you went through here."  
  
"You seem to know a whole hell of a lot more about me than I do about you," he remarked. "I don't that's quite fair."  
  
She held out her hand to him. "Sorry," she said. He took it in a half-daze and they shook over her introduction. "I'm called Glow because of the aura that surrounds me when I use my power, obviously. My given name is Sara. Future Tech Labs kidnapped me years ago, used me in their experiments and to power their compounds. I was no better to them than a living battery."  
  
"Some years ago, myself and several other mutants managed to effect an escape. We destroyed the place in the process."  
  
Wolverine looked around him in awe of the sheer level of ruin the building was in.  
  
"We didn't do this. We were held at a complex in Maine. Someone else did this. The records ended with a date fifteen years old. The last things entered into the computer were your records," Glow told him. "I've got most of it saved to a disk. What of it would still transfer, that is. "Well, the parts that would still transfer, that is. I wasn't able to get the whole system working."  
  
"Why are you doing this?" he asked her.  
  
"Because I want to find the bastards in charge of Future Tech and make them rot in Hell for what they did to me. I want to see them burn for what they did to all those other mutants who didn't make it out alive. I want them to know the pain that you felt," Glow told him honestly. She pulled off her sunglasses, which she'd still been wearing. Her eyes were a brilliant orange that matched her hair. "Vengeance is a powerful motivator."  
  
He stared at her orange eyes. "I came here for answers. You came here for vengeance. You plannin' on starting a war between you and these scientific jerks?"  
  
"If necessary. They cannot, under any circumstances, be allowed to continue this. I've found labs that were still active. I'm gathering information against them from the failed experiments," Glow said matter-of- factly. "If they can't be beaten legally, then maybe, just maybe, it'll get personal."  
  
"I need some time to take this all in. I want to read what you found. Can you fire that thing up again?" he asked as he thumbed to the computer.  
  
"It was a miracle I got it working in the first place," Glow said, shaking her head. "I've got everything here. For what they did to you, you can have full access. We just need a working computer main frame that could fill in the pieces, maybe try and retrieve the bits that were scrambled. Catch is, I don't have a place like that."  
  
"I think that maybe I do," Wolverine said as he scratched his chin thoughtfully. "I think maybe I do."  
  
"Well while you're deciding whether or not you can trust me, can we go get breakfast somewhere? I'm starving," she complained as she stuffed the computer disks into a green duffel bag she had tucked next to the console. She slung the bag over her shoulder.  
  
He laughed as he heard her stomach growl. "All right then, food first, mysterious pasts later."  
  
"Good," she sighed with relief. "You'll have to drive."  
  
"Yeah, my bike's out front."  
  
He eyed her suspiciously. "How'd you get here before me if you didn't drive?"  
  
"Easy," she replied, stepping behind him and pulling him into a hug. Surrounded by her golden-yellow aura, she half-jumped, half-rose into the air, taking him with her. "I flew."  
  
As she continued to rise into the air, he shifted slightly.  
  
"Don't squirm, I'll drop you," she cautioned him. She leaned slightly in the direction of his bike and flew towards it.  
  
"You know, the last time I did this, it was a lot less fun," he commented.  
  
"I see your bike. I'm taking us down," she warned. When they were about five feet above the ground she let go. He fell down, landing on his feet. "Sorry, but you're heavy. I'm not used to carrying anything besides myself."  
  
"It's okay," he mumbled as he straddled his bike and roared the engine to life. "Climb on... and you'd better hold on to me tight."  
  
She climbed onto the bike behind him and readjusted her bag. "I'll be ok. aahhhh!"  
  
Wolverine pulled away suddenly and swiftly. His smile was ear-to-ear and evil as Glow screamed, pressed her body against him, and wrapped her arms around him, burying her head in his shoulder.  
  
"Couldn't wait for a chance to get close to me, huh?" he teased over his shoulder.  
  
She pulled her head up and rested her chin on his shoulder. "Not likely, you're uncouth, unshaven, and unwashed."  
  
"Better be careful, I might take that personal. After all, you were the one who said I was cute."  
  
She snorted derisively. "Don't flatter yourself. I said you were almost cute. I also called you a jerk in the same sentence."  
  
"Aw hell."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I left my sleeping bag and pillow behind," he complained.  
  
"I'll buy you new ones," she shouted to him over the wind. "I'm sorry about going through your stuff, but I had to check for concealed weapons. I finished the pack of Life Savers in your pocket by the way."  
  
"You frisked me?"  
  
"Like I said, I had to check for a concealed weapon."  
  
"Oh? And did you like the weapon you found?" he goaded.  
  
"You did have a weapon? Wow, you had it really well concealed then. I sure couldn't find it," she said, assuming a tone of wide-eyed innocence.  
  
He frowned. "I'm not sure I like where this innuendo is going."  
  
"Then stop reading into everything I say and drive," Glow laughed back at him. She finally found her balance on the motorcycle and pulled away from him, throwing her arms into the air for fun. "Can this thing go any faster?"  
  
A single corner of Wolverine's mouth curled into a smile. "Faster? Sure, this thing can go faster."  
  
He flipped the turbo switch on the bike and was immediately greeted by another scream from Glow as she lost her balance and latched onto him. This time, she wrapped her hands together around his chest and kept her head buried in his shoulder.  
  
Wolverine casually looked over his shoulder at Glow pressing against him with her eyes squeezed shut in fright, and smiled a very small, smug grin. 


	4. Enter the Future Part Four

In Westchester, New York, a young girl sat in the library of her school and tried to do her homework. She kept tapping her pen against her notebook while resting her head on her hand. The blonde teenaged boy next to her gave her a dirty look, sighed, and finally slammed his hand down on her irritating pen.  
  
"What's with you, Rogue?" he hissed. "We're supposed to be studying, and all you've been doing is staring out the window and driving me nuts with that rotten tapping."  
  
"I'm sorry Bobby. I can't help it," she shifted in her seat and began twirling her pen in both of her velvet-gloved hands. "It's been six months today since Logan left. I can't help but think about him. Wonder if he's okay or if he needs help."  
  
"If there's one person in the world who can take care of himself, it's the Wolverine," Bobby reassured her. "He's the last one I'd picture needing help. I'm sure wherever he is, he's doing fine. Besides, you said he was looking for answers to his past, right?"  
  
At Rogue's nod, Bobby continued, "Then if he found what he was looking for, he'd need time to sort it out in his head before he came back wouldn't he? Give him some more time. I'm sure he's having fun just being out there right now."  
  
"I guess you're right Bobby. I'm sorry for being such a pain," she told him.  
  
"That's okay. Being a pain is what Rogues do best anyhow."  
  
Rogue stuck her tongue out at him and bent back over her books.  
  
A black motorcycle with sleek red racing lines purred to a halt in the parking lot of a highway rest-stop diner. The driver, a broad man in a brown leather jacket, kicked the stand into place and cut the engine. His passenger slowly unwound herself from him and pulled back, straightening her hair.  
  
"You are to never do that again without warning me!" Glow got off the motorcycle and slapped Wolverine on the back of his head.  
  
"Hey! I didn't do anything," he protested, grinning ear-to-ear. "You were the one who asked for more speed."  
  
"But on those curves? That road was so damned steep I thought you were going to run us clear off into the forest. or worse, off the side of that mountain."  
  
Glow put her sunglasses back on and pushed her duffel bag behind her again.  
  
Wolverine gave her a mock bow. "I do apologize to my lady for upsetting her delicate constitution. I vow to not let such a thing happen again. well, maybe not often anyway."  
  
Glow growled at him and muttered as she walked past him and into the diner. Wolverine was sure he caught the tail end of a phrase, "Local wildlife indeed."  
  
He followed her into the building and to the booth she'd already claimed. A waitress in a black and white uniform walked up and handed them their menus. She asked for drinks and then walked away snapping her gum.  
  
She was back in a minute with coffee for the both of them, took their orders and then disappeared into the kitchen. Glow looked around the diner. It was decorated in chrome with pink accents. Pink cushions on the chairs and in the booths. Pink napkins, pink tablecloths, and pink hued paintings adorned the walls.  
  
"What's the matter? You look queasy," Wolverine asked her.  
  
"How can anyone stand to look at so much pink and chrome in one place?" she whispered. "It's nauseating."  
  
He laughed. "At least you have a good sense of decor."  
  
She furrowed her brows and frowned at him in an effort not to laugh. "Décor matters to a guy like you?"  
  
"Define 'guy like me'," he bantered.  
  
"I thought I already did," she said with an affected look of surprise. Putting her mug down after a sip of coffee, she continued, ticking off the list on her fingertips. "Uncouth, unwashed, and unshaven."  
  
"Awful lot of 'uns,'" he told her. "I do like to clean up once in a while you know. Depends on whether or not the company is worth it."  
  
"And?" she baited.  
  
"The jury's still out," Wolverine answered seriously.  
  
The waitress appeared and delivered his omelet with bacon and her French toast. After leaving a small pitcher of syrup, the woman popped her gum and drifted away again.  
  
Glow paused in cutting up her breakfast to ask him a question. "So, where's this computer you think we can use to decipher the rest of the info I gleaned from F.T.L.'s CPU?"  
  
"With friends," he answered around a mouth full of bacon.  
  
"Still don't trust me?" she asked.  
  
"To be honest, I don't know why you trust me," he told her, leaning closer to avoid being heard by the new customers walking past them to a table. "For all you know, I could be a sociopath."  
  
"I've had no indication that you aren't," she teased. She took a bite of her toast, chewed, and swallowed before resuming. "But I have sympathy for anyone who lived through being in an F.T.L. lab, even if it was run by an affiliate."  
  
"So, how old were you when you were taken by the creeps?" he asked, trying to make his question sound casual.  
  
She raised an eyebrow over her sunglasses at him. "Twelve. They held me for twenty-three years."  
  
"Holy shit."  
  
He stopped eating and stared at her in amazement. "How'd you survive?"  
  
"Very nearly didn't," Glow whispered as she wiped her mouth with a pink napkin and shuddered. "Almost lost my mind in there. Fortunately, I had some good friends that pulled me through. We got out while I still had something of a mind left. Constantly channeling that much energy through me almost fried my brain - literally. Took a long time to heal."  
  
"And you?" Glow asked, putting her napkin down on the table. "How long were you in there?"  
  
"Don't know. That's what I came to find out," he answered, pushing a piece of omelet around on his plate with his fork. "I can't remember anything prior to fifteen years ago. Once and a while I get these flashes but."  
  
Glow reached across the table and took his hand. "You don't have to tell me. We just need to get these disks somewhere where we can read and analyze them. The answers we're both looking for have to be here somewhere."  
  
"Right," Wolverine answered. He covered her hand with his and rubbed the back of it softly. "I'm going to have to make a phone call. Gotta let my friends know we're coming."  
  
"Friends?"  
  
She wrinkled her brows in uncertainty.  
  
"Good people. Weird names," he grinned at her.  
  
"Weirder than Glow and Wolverine?" she asked as they stood. She left a tip and frowned as Wolverine grabbed the check before her.  
  
"Not by much. They run a school for people like us." He paid for their meal and they left.  
  
He sat astride his bike and kicked the engine to life. "Come on, I got to find a payphone."  
  
She climbed on behind him and encircled his waist with her arms. "No turbo speed this time, okay? I need to digest first."  
  
"Whatever you say darlin', whatever you say." 


	5. Enter the Future Part Five

Scott Summers was walking by Professor Xavier's empty office when the telephone rang. He quickly entered the room and answered the call.  
  
"Do I accept collect call charges from Logan?"  
  
Scott smirked. He opened his mouth to refuse when Jean walked in and grabbed the phone from him.  
  
"We accept the charges," she told the operator. "Hey Logan. What's up?"  
  
"Whoa. slow down. Say that again?"  
  
"What does he want?" Scott whispered.  
  
Jean shushed him and went back to the phone. "All right. I'll talk to the professor. What's the number of the phone you're on?"  
  
She hurriedly scribbled something on a scrap of paper and said, "Okay. We'll call you back on that number. Stay by the phone. Got any messages for anyone while you're on the line?"  
  
She smiled. "Okay, I'll let Rogue know you said 'hey.'"  
  
She almost dropped the phone and tried to cover a snicker. "I can't tell him that!"  
  
"Tell me what? What's he saying about me?" Scott yelled as he tried to grab the phone away from her.  
  
Jean held him in place using her telekinesis, and finished her conversation with Logan. "Just stay by the phone. I'll talk to the professor and we'll get back to you right away. Bye."  
  
She hung up the phone and released Scott from his telekinetic hold.  
  
Jean grabbed the scrap piece of paper, and left the room to find the professor with Scott following her.  
  
"What did he say about me?" he asked.  
  
"Nothing."  
  
"You're lying," he accused. "What did he say?"  
  
"How do you know he was talking about you? He could have been talking about the professor, or Bobby, or Magneto or something," Jean protested as she shrugged her shoulders.  
  
"Because I'm the one he thinks is a dick, remember?"  
  
She giggled.  
  
"That's what he told you to say isn't it? That I was a dick, right?" Scott said, crossing his arms over his chest.  
  
Jean wouldn't answer him as she continued down the hall.  
  
"Do you always call your friends dicks?" Glow asked him as he hung up the phone.  
  
"Only this one. But that's because he is," Wolverine half-smiled at her.  
  
"So what now?" she asked, folding her arms across her chest and sliding down the brick wall of the shopping center to sit on the concrete. Folding her legs into Indian style, she tilted her head back against the wall and looked up at him.  
  
"We wait for them to call back. Shouldn't take too long. Chuck will be pretty fast about answering."  
  
He lowered himself down and sat next to her, resting his hands on his knees.  
  
"Chuck's the boss man then?" she observed. At his nod she asked, "Who's Rogue? And Jean? Girlfriends of yours?"  
  
"Na," Wolverine answered, looking out into the parking lot and staring at his bike. "Jean's with the dick and Rogue's a kid I promised to look out for."  
  
"Oh."  
  
He looked at her sharply, unsure of how to take her tone. He was about to talk when the phone rang. Wolverine stood up and answered it.  
  
"Hey. Yeah. I think I may have something here. I've got a." he glanced down at Glow quickly. "A friend who can help, but we need access to a powerful computer and some time."  
  
He paused as he listened to the voice on the other end of the line. "Do you think you could pick us up? It'd save old Cyclops some mileage."  
  
Glow looked from him to the bike with an odd smile on her face.  
  
"Okay. We'll meet you back at the compound then. You've got room enough to land behind the building. Bye Chuck."  
  
He hung up the phone and looked down at her.  
  
"That's not your bike is it?" she asked.  
  
"Naw, belongs to the dick," he said as he helped her to her feet.  
  
"What's this about us being picked up?" Glow asked, pushing her orange hair out of her face.  
  
"My friends are going to pick us up in their jet. We've got to get back to the F.T.L. compound though. That's the pick-up point."  
  
"Swanky," she said. "I need to call my friends and let them know I'm going to be away for a while. Give me a sec or two."  
  
He nodded and turned his back to her and the phone.  
  
She slipped a quarter into the phone and dialed. After waiting a heartbeat she spoke. "Hey Mike. 'Rory there?"  
  
"Hey 'Rory."  
  
She paused.  
  
"Yeah, I'm okay. Listen I'm going to be out of town for a few days. or longer."  
  
She pulled the phone back from her ear and winced. Wolverine turned and rose an eyebrow at some of the language he heard coming out of the receiver. When the tirade on the other end died down, Glow put the phone back to her ear. "Calm down 'Rory. I'm just going to the place of some guy I met last night."  
  
She held the phone away from her ear in expectation of another outburst and was mildly surprised when none followed. She put the phone back and listened. "We met last night in a bar and slept out under the stars."  
  
She decided to bait both Wolverine and 'Rory. "And don't worry 'Rory, the one thing I've got in spades is protection."  
  
She chuckled as the back of his neck turned red with embarrassment. "I'll call when I get there. This could be the answer to what we've been looking for. Bye Auroara, and tell Mez to be in touch."  
  
She hung up the phone. "Well, are we going or not?"  
  
"Yeah, we're going," he said, then strode off to the bike.  
  
They climbed back on and pealed out of the parking lot and back down the highway once more.  
  
Wolverine watched her pace back and forth over the old sidewalk behind the complex's main lab. Full of nervous energy, Glow walked with her hands behind her back and her eyes on the ground, kicking pebbles out of her way. He sat on the bike sideways with his hands stuck in his jeans pockets.  
  
"Will you stand still?" he ordered. "You're gonna dig a furrow in the ground if you keep walkin' over the same plot of land."  
  
She stopped long enough to half-growl at him then resumed her pacing. "What's it to you?"  
  
"We're just being picked up by some friends of mine. There's nothing to be nervous about."  
  
"Not for you, they're your friends," Glow said, then halted a few steps from him and put her hands on her hips. "You, Mr. Unshaven, have friends with computer mainframes and private jets! Tell me you wouldn't be nervous if the situation was the other way around."  
  
He was quiet for a moment as he thought. "All right. I'll give you that."  
  
She opened her mouth to gloat when a sudden powerful wind struck up.  
  
They both looked to the sky and saw a mid-sized black jet hovering above them. Slowly but surely the jet lowered itself until it touched down gently.  
  
*Humph* "The last landing he did wasn't that easy." Wolverine grunted. "Wow. That's some private jet," Glow half-whispered in awe. "Just one question."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"How much Star Trek do these friends of your watch exactly?"  
  
He glared at her for a second. She smiled and gave him a friendly punch in the side to show she was joking. He couldn't look at her and keep a straight face.  
  
Jean and Storm stepped out of the Blackbird to see Logan laughing with an orange-haired woman.  
  
"Logan?" Jean asked, glancing at Storm with an odd smile on her face.  
  
"Hey Red," Logan shouldered his pack, put up the kickstand on the bike, and began to wheel it towards the ramp. "I'd like you to meet a new acquaintance of mine. This is Glow."  
  
He stopped at the two women and turned back to Glow, who'd been following a few wary paces behind. "Glow this is Storm, or Ororo Munroe and Red over here is Dr. Jean Grey."  
  
She offered her hand to the women in the order they'd been introduced. "Glow's what everyone knows me by. You can call me Sara, though, if you feel like it. I answer to both equally well."  
  
"Nice to meet you Sara," Jean said while shaking her hand. "I hope we'll get a chance to talk. I'm primarily the one who's going to be helping you go over the data Logan says you've collected."  
  
"Right," Glow said, pushing her sunglasses on to the top of her head, revealing her neon-orange eyes. Jean and Storm were taken aback for only a second. They'd seen stranger mutations before after all. "I don't want to be rude, but are we going anywhere, or are we just going to stand here and stare at each other?"  
  
"Oh, sorry, of course. Logan, get the bike on and Storm will help you secure it in the back," Jean motioned over her shoulder. Logan followed Storm up the ramp, wheeling the bike inside the Blackbird. "If you'll follow me Sara?"  
  
Glow and Jean walked up the ramp and it closed behind them. Jean pointed to a seat on the edge of the aisle two rows behind the pilot -a red- haired man with strange goggles on. Glow took the seat indicated and fastened her belt.  
  
"This is Scott Summers, also known as Cyclops," Jean introduced him, as Logan and Storm came back up from the hold and sat down.  
  
"Nice to meet you," Glow said.  
  
"Likewise," he answered flatly.  
  
Logan had taken the seat across the aisle from her. She leaned over and whispered to him, "So these are the teachers of the school you were talking about? The one for people like us?"  
  
"For mutants you mean?" Scott piped in.  
  
"Sorry. I didn't know what word you thought was politically correct," She turned her head in surprise and then leaned back to Logan. "He's the dick, right?"  
  
"I heard that," Scott stated.  
  
Logan just started laughing as the Blackbird lifted off. 


	6. Enter the Future Part Six

The Blackbird was met in the hanger by a small gaggle of teens and a middle-aged man in a wheel chair. Among the teens assembled, was a girl with a white stripe in her reddish brown hair, a blonde blue-eyed boy, a girl with short brown hair and an Asian American girl all waiting anxiously as Wolverine, Glow, and the others filed off the Blackbird.  
  
Glow had her duffel slung over her shoulder and her sunglasses still on top of her head. She stared everywhere at once, slightly overwhelmed by her new surroundings.  
  
"Greetings," the man in the wheel chair boomed in a deep rolling voice. "I'm Professor Charles Xavier. Forgive me for not knowing your name, Logan and I didn't have much time to talk earlier. I'd like to welcome you to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters."  
  
"Gifted Youngsters huh?" Glow made a noise of approval. "Somehow that sounds a lot better then mutant."  
  
"I think so," Xavier told her proudly.  
  
"I'm Glow. You can call me Sara, provided you get out of the back of my head and don't go back in there without permission," she let him know.  
  
"You were aware? How fascinating," Xavier said, curious about this stranger Logan had brought home. "How ever did you."  
  
"I run with a telepath. She taught me a few things. Can recognize one of you a mile off now," Glow said, shifting her weight as her eyes swept over the kids assembled. "If Dr. Grey would get her mind out of my head too, I'd appreciate it."  
  
"Sorry," Jean said abashed.  
  
"Standard policy for newcomers I would guess," Glow smiled to show that there were no hard feelings. "It's nothing we haven't done ourselves."  
  
"We?" Scott asked.  
  
"My friends and I," Glow begrudged him a straight answer.  
  
"Shall we escort you inside?" Xavier asked.  
  
"That'd be cool," she said, sounding light and uncaring.  
  
"Hey Logan," the girl with the white stripe in her hair called as she walked up to him and fell in step as they all left the hanger. "I was beginning to wonder when you'd come back."  
  
"Hey, I said I'd be back for that right?" he said as he fingered the dog tags that were hanging on her neck.  
  
"Yeah, do you want them back now?" she asked, starting to take them off.  
  
"Hold on to them for a while longer Rogue," he said as he ruffled her hair quickly and nodded to the other teens. "Who's your fan club?"  
  
"This is Jubilee," she pointed to Oriental-looking girl, "This is Kitty," she pointed to the girl with short hair, "and this is Bobby," she pointed to the boy last.  
  
They murmured various greetings. Glow fell back from where she'd been keeping pace with the professor to walk along Wolverine's other side.  
  
"You kids go to school here? You actually have regular classes?" she asked.  
  
"Yeah, math and history I could live without though," Jubilee said, popping a piece of gum.  
  
"But we have classes besides the normal stuff. Classes that help us learn how to use our powers," Bobby added.  
  
"Hmm," Glow stated as she stared around her at the pristine hallways and the kids moving back and forth between classes and activities.  
  
"Whatcha thinking?" Logan asked, putting a hand across her shoulders.  
  
"I was just wondering where this place was thirty-three years ago."  
  
"You're not the only one," he replied.  
  
Rogue quickly ducked her head in with her three friends and whispered. They separated, giggling quietly to themselves. Bobby fell in behind Glow and Wolverine and pointed at how close the two were walking to each other, as well as at the hand Logan had not removed from her shoulder. When the kids laughed softly again, Logan hastily pulled his hand away as if he had just realized what was so funny.  
  
Glow paying attention to Xavier's tour and lecture, had not noticed the exchange behind her. Xavier was just winding up his speech and asked her if she had any questions.  
  
"You got a place I could shower and change? Maybe catch some sleep? I was up all night making half-assed repairs to that computer to get it to work and then powered it so I could save what was left in there. I'm kinda wiped right now," she requested.  
  
"Of course. Storm? Would you show our guest to a room and a bathroom where she could freshen up?"  
  
At Storm's nod of acquiescence he turned back to Glow. "We can talk when you've had time to clean up and sleep."  
  
"Thanks." She replied, and then followed Storm, giving one backward glance to Wolverine. When she and the white-haired woman were out of sight, the group of teens started to laugh.  
  
"What's so funny?" Logan asked them, shoving his hands in his pockets.  
  
They collectively broke out into a string of "Ooooo's" and started singing a chorus of "Glow and Wolvie sitting in a tree..."  
  
Logan lifted a lip in a snarl at the kids and Scott - who was openly laughing at him. Xavier and Jean were doing their best not to join in.  
  
"You're lucky you're all underage," he told the kids flatly. "You're not through," Logan said as he turned to Scott and bared the claws on his right hand.  
  
"Logan, your room is still in the same place," Xavier smoothly slid in. "Why don't you go up and get some rest yourself? We've got a lot of work ahead of us."  
  
"Right," he nodded.  
  
The kids and teachers heard metal retracting and Logan walked up the stairs to his room.  
  
A loud burst of teenaged giggles followed him up the stairs.  
  
It pleased Logan to find that his room was exactly as he'd left it months ago. Everything was in its proper place, straight down to the clean towels. He grabbed a towel and paced down the hallway to the bathroom, figuring he'd just wash his face and wet his hair. He'd take a full shower later, after dinner.  
  
Logan strode right into the bathroom without realizing that the light inside was already on. He looked up at the sound of someone gasping. Glow stood, dripping wet from the shower, half in and half out of the tub as she reached for a bar of soap by the sink counter. They stared at each other in surprised shock for a heartbeat.  
  
A slow, small smirk slipped across Logan's face. That smug look stirred Glow to action. She ducked back behind the shower curtain, pulled it off its rings, and wrapped herself in it. She stepped out of the shower and angrily advanced on Wolverine.  
  
"HOW DARE YOU!" She roared at him, eyes ablaze, sparks going crackling around her body as she charged up.  
  
Logan realized the best place for him probably wasn't in a bathroom full of water with a woman who controlled electricity. He started backing out of the bathroom into the hall as she marched forward.  
  
Xavier turned around from his conversation with Jean to look down the hallway in the direction the shout had come from.  
  
"What was that?" Jean asked him.  
  
"I don't know, but we'd better find out," he said as he spun his wheelchair around and headed in the direction of that outraged voice with Jean close on his heels.  
  
When the two got there they saw Storm, Scott and a few students already gathered to watch. With a mentally imposed command, Xavier sent the students away, leaving the teachers to sort out what happened.  
  
"You arrogant little prig! What the hell made you think you could just waltz right in." Glow ranted furiously. She was standing in the doorway to the bathroom, wrapped in a blue shower curtain with little green frogs on it. The woman had Logan backed against the wall across from her.  
  
"Well you should have locked the door or something." Wolverine interrupted, holding up his hands in defense, failing miserably at keeping the smile off his face and out of his voice.  
  
"Argh!" she screamed, becoming enveloped in a golden yellow aura.  
  
"I don't have to be psychic to know what happened," the professor whispered to Jean.  
  
"Shouldn't we stop them?" Jean asked.  
  
"No. I want to see just what it is she can do," he said speculatively. "After all, it's not like anything's going to keep Logan down for very long."  
  
Bolts of pure electricity started to run up and down her body, white with their own heat, and crackling and popping around her skin. Glow held up the shower curtain with one hand and aimed her other hand at Logan.  
  
She bit her lip as the electricity that had been loosely flowing around her focused on her fingertips. With a cry of frustration she turned from Wolverine and pointed at Scott. A flash of white and yellow light enveloped both of them as she electrocuted Scott and sent him flying to the floor. He skidded down the hall about twelve feet and stopped.  
  
"Scott!" Jean screamed as she ran past everyone to her boyfriend's side. As she checked for his vital signs she turned on Glow and shouted, "What the hell did you do to him? And WHY?"  
  
"He'll be up in two hours with a headache. My power's electrical in nature. He might not even remember what happened. Most people lose their short-term memory when I fry them," Glow sighed as she powered down and the aura disappeared. "I'm sorry. I really am."  
  
"Being sorry doesn't explain why you 'fried' him," Xavier pointed out.  
  
"Because I promised him that I wouldn't use my power against him again!" she nodded in Logan's direction. Glow rearranged the shower curtain again and gestured with one hand in Scott's direction. "Scott was the nearest available male I could take my anger out on without feeling guilty about it."  
  
"That's quite a temper you've got there," the professor observed.  
  
"I'm Irish, I'm supposed to have a temper," the woman shrugged and as if it had just occurred to her she turned back around and walked into the bathroom. Glow paused for a moment, walked back out and poked Logan in the chest with her pointer finger. "And you! Next time.KNOCK FIRST!"  
  
She smiled at the wince he gave from her shout in his ear, then walked proudly back into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.  
  
Everyone cringed at the loud bang of the door.  
  
"Jean? How is he?" Xavier asked, rolling up to where Storm was helping Jean make Scott comfortable.  
  
"He's okay, I think. He's vitals are all normal, but I still want to take him to the infirmary to be sure."  
  
"Right. Logan, since it is your fault, however indirectly, that Scott is incapacitated, you get to carry him down to the medical center," Xavier announced as he passed them and left.  
  
"Be careful," Jean cautioned.  
  
"Like he was my own mother, Red," Logan told her as he gingerly picked the other man up.  
  
"I'm going ahead to get a bed ready. Meet me down there," Jean said as she ran ahead.  
  
"So, Logan. You haven't been back more than twenty minutes and already you've gotten yourself in the middle of a situation," Storm said as she walked along side him.  
  
"Well, it's what I'm good at," he answered convincingly.  
  
"Is it worth it?" Storm asked as they went down the stairs.  
  
"Well, like you said, I haven't been home more than twenty minutes, when I got to see a beautiful naked woman in a shower and see Cyclops here knocked unconscious from taking my punishment."  
  
Logan shifted the dead weight of the other man. "All in all, I'm having a great time. It's good to be back."  
  
Storm looked at him with one eyebrow raised and sighed in exasperation. "At least things are never dull with you around. I'll see you Logan. I need to get back to my class. I bet they have all wandered off by now."  
  
"I would have," He told her. When she was out of sight he looked at the unconscious form of Scott in his arms. "Screw it."  
  
He tossed the other man over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and headed in the opposite direction the white-haired woman had taken to drop Cyclops off in the infirmary. 


	7. Enter the Future Part Seven

Bobby, Kitty, Jubilee, and Rogue parked themselves on the couch in the recreation room. Bobby flipped on the television and tuned in to MTV to catch the latest episode of The Real World. Glow, now dressed in an oversized gray sweatshirt, a pair of jean shorts, and a pair of white gym socks, walked by them, glancing at the screen. She paused, backed up, and draped herself over the top of the couch.  
  
"Yes? Can we help you?" Jubilee asked flippantly.  
  
"I just want to know one thing," Glow told them.  
  
"What's that?" Bobby asked.  
  
"How can you watch that show and retain any brain cells?" came her query.  
  
"I often ask them that as well, but the kids never seem to have an answer."  
  
The whole group turned and saw Jean standing behind them.  
  
"Oh, we have an answer, Miss Grey," Kitty reassured her. "We just don't know what it is yet."  
  
"Just the right amount of respect mixed with a touch of flippancy. I'm impressed." Glow ruffled Kitty's hair and straightened up.  
  
"Don't encourage them," Jean said flatly as she crossed her arms over her chest.  
  
"Still pissed at me for frying your lover boy, huh?" Glow spoke off- handedly.  
  
"I am not."  
  
"She is," Rogue whispered to her friends.  
  
"What frying? When did I miss this?" Jubilee was aghast.  
  
"Can we discuss this someplace else?" Jean tapped her foot.  
  
"Without the audience?"  
  
"Whatever you like." She moved from the couch giving Jean the evil eye. "Despite the fact that you can't stand me right now, I'd like to get to work analyzing those disks I took of F.T.L.'s mainframe. Do you think we could get started on that and argue during down times?"  
  
"Fine," Jean affected affably. "Where are the disks?"  
  
"In my bag. Upstairs." Glow headed in the direction of her room and nodded for Jean to follow her.  
  
As the adults left the room the kids stared after them, and then turned back to the TV not really paying attention to it anymore. Finally, Bobby spoke.  
  
"So who do you think? Glow or Miss Grey?"  
  
"I think Miss Grey could take her," Kitty offered.  
  
"Na, Glow came in with Wolverine. She's got to be powerful. My money's on her," Rogue disagreed.  
  
"I'm gonna side with Kitty on this one. I mean, Miss Grey's a telepath! Who could be stronger than that?" Jubilee put in, popping another bubble in her gum.  
  
"But did you hear what Glow said? And the way Miss Grey reacted? Glow did something to Mr. Summers. She had to have! And if she could lay him out. my money's on Glow," Bobby put in.  
  
"If you're placing bets, then I'm calling house."  
  
"ACK!" The four teens jumped out of their skins and turned back around to the sound of a very familiar adult's voice.  
  
"Logan!" Rogue swallowed. "We were just."  
  
"Arranging the fight of the century?" Logan teased as he walked in and sat down in the gray recliner next to the couch the kids were on. "So what's this all about?"  
  
"Glow came in and was talking to us and then Miss Grey came in and made some sort of crack and Glow told Miss G that she must still be pissed about Mr. Summers getting fried," Kitty babbled in a rush.  
  
"Then they kinda just postured for a while and left to go work on the disks that Glow brought back with you," Bobby finished a bit more coherently. "Glow seemed not to notice, but Miss Grey was really tense."  
  
"Jean? And Sara? Working on that project-Alone? I'm not sure that's a good idea," Logan rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Especially after what Glow did to old one-eye. Does the Prof know about this?"  
  
He caught the stares from the four students and held his hands up in a surrendering position. "Right. Stupid question."  
  
"Sir? If you don't mind me asking, what did happen?" Bobby ventured the subject.  
  
"Well, the long and short of it." he started, then squirmed, unsure of how much to tell the kids about his involvement in the situation. "Glow had a good reason to be pissed off and she used her power to electrocute Mr. Summers. He's been unconscious for the past two hours-just woke up a little bit ago."  
  
"Whoa," Jubilee's eyes bugged out. "Is it too late to change my bet?"  
  
"Yes," Logan said. "I already called house, and that's the only sure way to make money when you gamble. But you didn't learn that from me."  
  
"Right," Rogue agreed. She asked the question they were all dying to know. "So. Logan. how did you meet Glow?"  
  
"We met in a bar fight. Seems to be the best way to meet a woman these days." The older man hid a smile as Rogue blushed. Logan pressed the reclining lever and put up his feet. Turning to the TV he asked the kids, "So how can you kids watch this show without losing brain cells?"  
  
"They're in here." Glow flicked on the light to the bedroom she'd been assigned and led Jean into the room. The orange-haired woman picked up her beat-up green duffle bag, unzipped the main pouch, and rummaged through a small wad of clothing. Jean caught a glimpse of something green and yellow with an odd collar before Glow pulled out a small black carrying case for 3.5" floppy disks. "I was able to save to eight disks before."  
  
"Before what?" Jean prompted.  
  
"Before Wolverine threatened to give me a new set of air holes in my neck," she smiled in humorous remembrance. She ignored Jean's eyebrow upturned in question and continued, "It's not a lot, but what I do have is going to take a while to sort through. The main frame had been corrupted with years of degeneration and some fire damage. There are patches in the files, things that looked like they were cut and pasted from other programs, and holes were the information had just been lost."  
  
"I think that our system can handle it," Jean sniffed. "I'll just run a virus scan on them first."  
  
She tried to grab the box from Glow who pulled it back out of the other woman's range. "We work on this together. I promised Logan unrestricted access to what's on here. Not you."  
  
"Why Logan?"  
  
Glow stared at her as if it should be obvious. "The man's a survivor of an F.T.L. affiliate. He should be given a medal of honor for keeping sane and alive for this long."  
  
Jean looked intently at Glow. "You talk about F.T.L. as if I should know about them."  
  
"You're a mutant. I'm greatly surprised that you don't. I bet they know about you. Where's the computer?"  
  
"On the lower level, below the basement. It's restricted access," Jean said, slightly bewildered.  
  
"Come on then, I want to get to work," Glow said as she left the room. "Remember to turn the light out."  
  
The women rode the elevator in a stony silence.  
  
"So what's it like?" Glow's question broke the silence, startling Jean.  
  
"What's what like?"  
  
"Being one of these X-Men? What do you do exactly?" Glow asked, turning to the younger woman.  
  
"We teach," Jean said, and then turned away, finding the other woman's gaze uncomfortable for some reason.  
  
"Right. And I'm Miss America," Glow snorted. "Give me some credit. Teachers don't have private jets and turbo motorcycles that look like they walked off a Star Trek set. Teachers don't have restricted access computers in secret underground levels of a boarding school."  
  
Jean gave her a long searching look as the elevator doors opened and the two stepped out. "The professor is dedicated to improving human/mutant relations as well as protecting the rights of both parties against each other if necessary. The X-Men agree with and follow his beliefs."  
  
"Defenders of mutant rights in the war against human kind? As well as defenders of human rights against mutant kind?" Glow sounded slightly sarcastic. "Isn't it awfully hard to know which side you're on?"  
  
"I have a side and a place to belong where I am useful and needed," Jean replied stiffly.  
  
"Nothing wrong with that."  
  
The abrupt change in the tone of Glow's voice turned Jean's head to her. The stranger's enunciation had become soft and remorseful. "It's good to have a place to call your own, and people who share your ideals."  
  
"Uh, right." Jean just didn't know how to act around this odd woman. "Um, this is the main research room. We should be able to work well in here."  
  
"Can I call you Jean? Or must it be Dr. Grey?" Glow asked before entering the room.  
  
Something about her honest stare and the remorse in her voice caught the telepath. "You can call me Jean."  
  
"Thank you. I do want you to know that I am genuinely sorry about what I did to your boyfriend." Glow pushed a lock or orange hair out of her eyes. "I shouldn't make excuses but, I'm in definitely unknown territory and I'm kinda tense and wound up. It's weird enough being in a place where it's okay to say you're a mutant and to use your power openly, but to top it all off, having to read and put back together the past that Future Tech stole from me and my friends and countless others."  
  
"It's unsettling, I'm sure." Jean put her arm over Glow's shoulders. She led the taller woman into the research room. "Come on, let's get to work." 


	8. Enter the Future Part Eight

A Chinese-American woman sat on the hardwood floor of the apartment she and her friends were renting. She held her slender hands up to her temples; her head tipped back slightly, just enough to keep her hazel brown hair from falling into her eyes.  
  
"Have you heard from her yet?" a much taller brown-haired woman said as she entered the room, dressed from head to toe in a blue and silver body suit.  
  
"She's in. She can't really talk. There's two telepaths on the grounds. plus I sense another one with potential that I don't think they know about yet." The Chinese-American woman answered without speaking aloud, projecting her mental voice into the mind of her companion. "She's gathered the data we need to track him. It's just a matter now of analyzing the journals to find out where he is."  
  
"Can she do it without detection?" the blue and silver suited woman asked as she sat down on the couch.  
  
"Hey!"  
  
"What the hell?!" She shot back up. "Badlands?"  
  
"Sorry."  
  
The air seemed to waver and a mid-sized blonde man appeared out of nowhere.  
  
"You don't need to enter shadow mode with us around! It's a damned nuisance trying to keep track of you as it is!" the woman in blue hissed.  
  
"Can't help it. I'm edgy. Our fearless leader is in potentially hostile ground, Mez here can't really communicate with her, and we don't know what's going on." The speech proved Badlands an Englishman by his thick accent. "I wish you'd let me go in after her, Whirlwind. No one would know I'm there."  
  
"He's right. I can't even track him when he's shadowed." Mez put her hands down into her lap. "I don't think that they could either. He'd be invaluable back-up."  
  
Whirlwind sighed and studied her two friends. "All right. If we don't hear from her in another twenty-four hours, Badlands, you move in. Does that sound okay with you two?"  
  
"It sounds bloody marvelous." The Englishman leaned back on the couch and folded his hands behind his head.  
  
"Then I shall continue to listen for her." Mez put her hands back to her forehead and closed her eyes in concentration.  
  
A woman with ice blue eyes and long blonde hair crossed her long legs and swiveled her chair around to face the tall, hairy man in front of her. She didn't like meeting her clients in her professional office, but you don't turn away a client this big and powerful at the door - lest he takes it off its hinges.  
  
"What are you worried about? Everything is going according to plan," the woman said as she folded her hands in her lap.  
  
"Are you sure we can trust this guy? You said so yourself that he hasn't been under your control as long as some of the others," the big man growled.  
  
"Relax, Sabertooth," she smoothed out the wrinkles in her pink skirt and tugged the edge of her gray sweater down. "You hired me to get your boss out of the clink, and that's just what I'm going to do. This man has powers almost identical to Magneto's, he's the best candidate for the job."  
  
"He'd better be. If anything goes wrong, it's going to be your head that I take off!" Sabertooth rumbled.  
  
"You dare threaten the head of the New Realm?" her eyes narrowed and grew even colder then before as she stood and stepped towards him.  
  
Involuntarily, he took a step back from her and her frozen gaze. "DreamWeb, I just want this to go as smoothly as possible. Not like last time."  
  
"I know," DreamWeb turned from him. "I saw that little fiasco on the news. The official reason for Magneto's capture is listed as injuries due to the mechanical failure of his machine. A machine that they still cannot figure out the purpose of."  
  
She turned to him curiously. "What was that machine supposed to do to all those people anyway?"  
  
"It was designed by Dr. Maxwell DeLeon." He crossed his arms over his chest. "It's supposed to evoke a spontaneous mutation in average humans while leaving natural born mutants alone and unharmed."  
  
"Fascinating," DreamWeb said, holding one hand up to her cheek. "I can almost appreciate your boss' genius. Too bad the machine failed on him."  
  
"The machine didn't fail. It was blown apart by." He trailed off, embarrassed at their failure.  
  
"By who?" DreamWeb's voice, as sweet and as smooth as honey seemed to carry hidden acid in it.  
  
"By those rats, the X-Men," Sabertooth growled through clenched teeth.  
  
"X-Men?" DreamWeb laughed. She held up her hands in protection as Sabertooth whirled on her in his anger. "Seems like we've all got our thorns in our side, doesn't it?"  
  
He grunted.  
  
"But I won't have mine for much longer, nor you yours. Not if my new - acquirement - comes through for us." DreamWeb walked back to her desk and picked up the phone. "David? Yes, could you find me a man-one Dr. Maxwell DeLeon?"  
  
"What do you need him for?" Sabertooth asked as she hung up the phone.  
  
"I just remembered where that name sounded familiar from. I think I can not only free Magneto, but put a long-standing problem of mine to rest as well."  
  
She ignored Sabertooth's raised eyebrow and sat back down. DreamWeb turned her back to the man. "You may show yourself out. I will contact you again when I have more information about the status of our operation. And don't worry so much. When dealing with the New Realm your money is always well spent."  
  
"Right," Sabertooth snorted derisively, turned on his heel and stormed out of her office, slamming the door behind him.  
  
"Ms. Manchester? Are you all right?" a man's worried voice broke in on her intercom. "He just stormed out of here."  
  
"I'm fine, David," she replied, turning to the box. "Have you located the good Dr. yet?"  
  
"I have."  
  
"Good. Arrange for a meeting between us."  
  
"I wouldn't recommend it, ma'am," David Devine cautioned. "He's still affiliated with Future of Technology Laboratories, known to be mutant experimenters. I don't think."  
  
"I'm not paying you to think. I'm paying you to obey. Or do I have to weave a web for you as well?" She scratched her pink nails down on the table. "I'd like to think you're loyal to me without such coercion."  
  
"I am, always Ms. Manchester. You know that," he spoke, subdued.  
  
"Then do as I say," she finished, then leaned back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap.  
  
"As you wish." The intercom went dead.  
  
Jean Grey saved her work and yawned. She stood and stretched, cracking her stiff back. Glow didn't even look up. She continued to punch keys at a furious rate, moving between windows of raw data and typed entries, periodically saving.  
  
"Hey, you ready to call it a night yet?" Jean asked.  
  
"Hmm?"  
  
"Glow. Sara, it's after ten. we've missed dinner. Let's pack it in," Jean said, amazed at the other woman's endurance. "We can start again first thing tomorrow."  
  
"Oh. right. just a second." Glow stopped typing and saved her finished work to one of her disks. Pulling the disk out of its drive, she shut down the computer she'd been working on and turned to stand. "I guess I'm a little stiff too."  
  
"Come on. Let's go back upstairs and raid the fridge. I'm starving."  
  
"Sounds good to me." Glow stifled a yawn and followed the other woman out of the room.  
  
They rode the elevator upstairs in tired silence and walked down the halls together, all the while proving that yawns were contagious. As soon as one woman yawned the other did likewise. They glanced at each other in mid-yawn and giggled.  
  
"Looks like we're both done in," Glow smiled at the redhead.  
  
"Yeah, I just hope the kids left us something to eat."  
  
"Whoa."  
  
Jean followed Glow's gaze to the fridge that had just come into sight as they rounded the corner into the kitchen. She groaned. The fridge was covered from top to bottom in a solid block of ice.  
  
"Bobby."  
  
"The blonde boy I met this afternoon? He did this?" Glow thumbed towards the refrigerator.  
  
"His power is to make ice. He's good at it, he's just not good at controlling when he makes ice." Jean put her hands on her hips. "He should have told someone about this though."  
  
"He did."  
  
The two women turned around to see Cyclops and Wolverine behind them. Scott had a chisel and hammer with him. Logan just had his claws bared.  
  
"We're going to start chipping the ice away." Scott told them. "I don't want to wait for a block of ice that big to start melting. it'll take forever."  
  
"Not necessarily," Glow turned a speculative eye to the frozen fridge. She began to glow with her yellow hallo and took a step towards the appliance.  
  
"So that smell was you," Logan observed.  
  
"Excuse me?" Glow turned on him. "I showered this afternoon. A fact, thanks to you, that everyone is aware of."  
  
"No, I mean that burning smell. I wasn't sure before, but I am now. Every time you use your power the air smells like burnt ozone." Logan held up his hands to placate her.  
  
"And I need to know this because?" she rolled her eyes.  
  
"Just an observation."  
  
He nodded to the domestic device. "So what are you thinking of doing?"  
  
"I can use the heat of my electricity to start super-speeding the melt on this block of ice. I won't melt it all the way through. I don't want my power hurting the fridge. I'll just make it easier for you guys to cut it loose," she answered him.  
  
"I'll get a mop and bucket," Jean sighed. "Either way you do it, we're going to have an awful mess here."  
  
She grumbled as she turned away. "All I wanted was some leftover chicken."  
  
"Shall I?" Glow motioned back to the hunk of ice.  
  
"Go ahead. Better it than me," Cyclops waved her on.  
  
She winced at the reminder of the earlier incident and pressed her hands against the surface of the ice. Her halo shined a brighter yellow and white while yellow bolts of electricity crackled around her, surrounding the appliance. The ice began to sweat and drip water at an astonishing rate. It soon became apparent that they were going to need Jean's bucket and mop sooner then they thought. Glow stopped her melting when she reached two inches from the surface.  
  
"Ick," Glow pulled away and took a step back in the slushy water. "I hate wet socks."  
  
She jumped into the air and hung there, much to Scott's surprise. Leaning over, she pulled her socks off her feet and flew past them into the hall. "I'll skip the late night snack and just eat in the morning. Good night boys."  
  
"'Night," Logan called after her.  
  
"I didn't know she could fly," Scott stared down the hall after her.  
  
"Yep, and her landings stink just as much as yours."  
  
Logan advanced on the fridge and started to chip the excess ice away from the door handles with his claws. "You gonna help or not?"  
  
"Right," The other man hurried forward with his hammer and chisel and began work on the door's hinges.  
  
"Damn. I should have gotten Storm instead of a mop. She could have evaporated this and saved me the trouble," Jean said as she entered with a mop in one hand and a bucket in the other.  
  
"I'll get her," Logan said, retracting his claws.  
  
"Hey Logan," Scott called after him.  
  
"What?" the dark haired man turned in the doorway.  
  
"Just make sure you knock first."  
  
"Everyone thinks they're a comedian," Logan growled and walked out, muttering under his breath. "I'm never gonna live that down." 


	9. Enter the Future Part Nine

DreamWeb sat in her darkened office with her hands folded and her head resting on them. The intercom buzzed.  
  
"Yes?" she answered it.  
  
"There's a Mr. Russell McLain to see you. He doesn't have an appointment but he's insisting."  
  
"That I sent for him. Don't worry. Send him in."  
  
"Yes, Ma'am." The intercom buzzed off and she heard the lock on her office doors hum slightly as the security lock opened.  
  
A man, just over six feet tall, with red-orange hair, walked into the room dressed in a pair of blue jeans, a white and green shirt, and a pair of brown boots. She turned to meet him. "Well, well. Mr. McLain. It's so nice of you to join me."  
  
"Like I had a choice?" he answered, his voice rumbling deep in his chest. "You summoned me and I had no alternative but to answer. When I figure out a way to break this."  
  
"You won't. So stop trying." she assured him. "And if you continue to be a good boy, then I won't have to do this again."  
  
She glowed briefly with a bright pinkish-silverish light. McLain fell to his knees, clutching his head and crying out.  
  
"Wha.what did you do that for?" he gasped as she let go of his mind.  
  
"Politeness is everything in this business my friend," DreamWeb told him. "Learn some. I can do this two ways, I can leave you with your mind intact and just compel you to work for me or, I can seize complete control of your mind and body and turn you into a grunt who will never be able to think above a kindergarten level ever again."  
  
"You want me to get this Eric whoever out of his prison cell," McLain resigned himself.  
  
"Good boy," DreamWeb praised him with absolutely no emotion in her voice. "You also have to make it appear as if he got out all on his own."  
  
"What?" the red-haired man stammered. "But. wait, you want to make this guy look like he's absolutely powerful. Like he was just playing with everyone all this time."  
  
"Perceptive. See, this is why I like you with a brain rather than without," DreamWeb purred. "You could be a useful permanent asset to the New Realm."  
  
His stomach lurched at the thought. "It's going to be hard to get in without anyone noticing me."  
  
"Which is why I had Checkmate make up one of these for you."  
  
She pulled open a desk drawer and pulled out a belt with a strange looking buckle on it. "The green button activates the distortion field that will render you invisible. The red button deactivates it."  
  
"And the blue?" he asked, taking it from her warily.  
  
"Panic button to call my team if you should need back-up, but you won't need it will you?"  
  
"Meaning if I get caught, I'm on my own because your team won't answer my distress signal," he spat. "I was acting alone and you had nothing to do with it."  
  
"And don't even think of getting caught deliberately," DreamWeb cautioned him. "I have a long reach with those I'm 'connected' to. I'll find you and kill you."  
  
"Understood." He turned on his heel and marched out of the room, not quite slamming the door behind him.  
  
A figure moved out from the shadows of the far corner of her vast office. "I don't like this. If you're going to use him, then just take him over and run him like a puppet. You're taking too many risks."  
  
"Ah, Mr. Sabertooth. You worry too much," DreamWeb reassured him. "There's only one telepath in the world that's ever been able to break my hypnotic control over someone once I've placed my psychokinetic net of energy inside the victim's mind. And she's occupied elsewhere."  
  
"Statements like that make me nervous," Sabertooth answered.  
  
"Trust me. Have faith in the New Realm. We take care of our own," DreamWeb cooed.  
  
"Yeah, I saw how well," Sabertooth sniffed. "Just remember, you don't get the rest of your money until Magneto is safe and back with the Brotherhood."  
  
"Of course, Mr. Sabertooth," she said as she steepled her hands. "Of course."  
  
The blonde man growled softly as he silently strode out of the office.  
  
Students at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters walked quietly through the halls today. Rumors surrounding the return of Wolverine and his new companion were running rampant throughout the school. So when the strange woman known as Glow came downstairs for breakfast, the halls were surprisingly bare of teenagers. Aware that she was being watched from corners and whispered about, Glow wandered around the first floor until she recognized the hallway that leads to the kitchen. She went in, hoping to find something to eat.  
  
When she entered she found Scott, Xavier, Logan, Storm, Jubilee, and Bobby already there. They were sitting around a rather large round table. Plates in the center of the table held toast and scrambled eggs for anyone to help themselves to.  
  
"Morning everyone," Glow said as she entered.  
  
"Good morning Glow," Xavier said sprightly. "Will you join us?"  
  
"I never turn down free food," she grinned and parked herself in a chair next to Logan.  
  
"Jean sends her regrets, but she has classes today until four," Storm told her. "She will not be able to work with you on your - project until after that."  
  
"And I'm not allowed near the fancy stuff without adult supervision right?" Glow gave her a resigned smile.  
  
The two teens giggled, drawing Glow's attention to them. "So why aren't the two of you in classes right now?"  
  
"These two were trying to sneak food after hours when Bobby's little mishap with the fridge occurred," Scott told her as he stared at the two youngsters. "They're on detention duty today. They get to do all those messy, long chores that no one else ever volunteers for."  
  
"Ouch."  
  
Glow leaned over and helped herself to a piece of Logan's toast, ignoring his protest that there was a whole plate in the middle of the table for her to help herself to. "Since I can't get any work done this morning, I was wondering if you knew of any place I could go shopping around here? I've got some things to pick up."  
  
"There's a mall in town. I could show you around," Jubilee offered.  
  
"And what makes you think you're going anywhere you could possibly have fun?" Storm asked her, hiding a smile.  
  
"Aww," Jubilee grumbled, picking at her eggs with her fork.  
  
"Are you gonna eat that?" Glow asked Logan, pointing at his plate.  
  
He stared at her, sighed, and pushed the plate in her direction.  
  
"Thanks." She dug in without even changing the fork.  
  
A set of bemused looks encompassed the table.  
  
"You're more than welcome to go into Westchester and do some shopping," Xavier said. "I think I'll assign Logan as your guide."  
  
"What? Why me?" he asked.  
  
"Because you're the only one who doesn't have to teach a class," The professor said calmly. "And take Bobby and Jubilee with you. I think they could stand to learn some socialization skills from the two of you."  
  
Glow stopped eating, looked at the kids, and then back at Logan. "Why does that sound ominous?"  
  
The adults could barely hear her above the cheering of the kids. Xavier brought them back to earth immediately. "Of course, you do realize that the chores assigned to you by Mr. Summers will still be waiting for you when you get back?"  
  
"Oh." Their faces fell for a moment before Jubilee piped up, "I don't have a thing to wear. I need to change if we're going out! May I be excused?"  
  
She barely waited for Xavier's nod when she ran off.  
  
"So how are we getting there?" Glow changed the subject. "I don't drive. I was just planning to take the bus, but if I'm going to be watching out for three kids then I want to be a bit more secure."  
  
"Three?" Logan asked her.  
  
She ignored him and looked to Xavier for an answer. Logan growled at Scott who was snickering behind his hand.  
  
"You can take one of the cars in the garage. Logan can drive," The professor assured her.  
  
"There's no turbo switches on any of those, are there?" she asked pensively.  
  
"Not that I'm aware of. Why?" Charles Xavier questioned, his curiosity piqued.  
  
"No reason," she answered off-handedly.  
  
It was Logan's turn to snicker behind his hand. Bobby watched the exchange with blatant confusion on his face.  
  
"Ah, um, I think I'm gonna go see what Jubilee's up to," he hurriedly excused himself from the table.  
  
"So what do you need to get?" Storm asked Glow. "Perhaps I can recommend some stores."  
  
"A sleeping bag and a pillow, first off."  
  
"Why a sleeping bag and pillow?" the white haired woman asked, taken slightly aback.  
  
"I owe him," she thumbed at Logan, who in turn colored at the looks the three X-Men were giving him.  
  
"Well. there's a Sears in the mall. I'm sure you'll find what you're looking for in there." Storm hid her mystification behind her coffee mug as she took a sip.  
  
"One more question," Glow said, turning back to face Xavier.  
  
"By all means, ask away," the older man offered.  
  
"You got a place around here I could let off some 'tricity?" she asked.  
  
"I'm not sure I understand."  
  
Glow elaborated at his request. "My eye color is a side-effect of my mutant power. The more electricity I've got in my system the brighter an orange my eyes turn. When I've completely expelled all my stored up energy my eyes return to normal."  
  
"I see, since you're going out in public you want to return to your natural eye color," Storm said.  
  
"Keeps me from sticking out in a crowd," Glow said, finishing Logan's coffee for him. "And it beats having to wear a pair of shades all the time - and then having to explain why."  
  
"Hey!" Scott half-rose before Xavier put a restraining arm on him.  
  
"Yes, we have a place like that," he enlightened her. "We affectionately call it, The Danger Room."  
  
Glow raised an eyebrow. 


	10. Enter the Future Part Ten

Glow followed Xavier and Scott down to the lower levels of the mansion with some trepidation. Storm and Wolverine had supposedly gone to a different level to be in the control booth. They reached a huge set of metal double doors. Scott stood off to one side and looked into a device. The device emitted a beam of blue light, scanning his retina.  
  
"Access cleared. Welcome, Cyclops," the Danger Room's computer declared. The doors opened and the three saw a giant almost rectangular room covered in strange metallic equipment on all sides, including the ceiling and the floor.  
  
"Whoa," Glow's eyes went wide and she hesitated before taking a step inside the room. "What is this place?"  
  
"A training room," Cyclops told her. "The room is equipped with holographic projectors everywhere. The object of the Danger Room is to defeat the programmed scenario in as short a time as possible while taking only minimal injury or preferably, none at all."  
  
"Since this is your first time in the Danger Room and you really aren't using it for training per say, the program called up will be extremely low level. But just in case, Cyclops will remain in with you," Xavier told her. "I'll be up in the control booth with Storm and Wolverine."  
  
"Don't do me any favors," Glow whispered as she stepped farther into the room, Cyclops on her heels.  
  
"Are you sure you don't want to change into something else?" Xavier asked. "I could have Storm get you a suit."  
  
Glow looked down at herself. She was dressed plainly, in blue jeans, a dusky rose t-shirt, a denim jacket and white canvas sneakers. "Nothing here that can be hurt by my power. I'm fine."  
  
"Very well then. I look forward to seeing you exit with your true eye color." Xavier backed his wheel chair out of the doorway and the entry automatically closed behind him.  
  
"Don't be nervous. Storm will warn us when she punches up the program," Cyclops advised. "Since you're just using this to output your excess energy, she's probably just going to put us in a terrain setting with trees and whatnot for you to blast."  
  
"Gee thanks. A kiddied-down holodeck program," Glow said sardonically. "Honestly, how old do you all think I am?"  
  
Cyclops shrugged. "Early twenties. You don't look too much older than some of our senior students."  
  
"I'm forty-five cutie," she informed him. "Had my birthday this past April. Don't talk to me like I'm three again. I'll start taking it personal."  
  
"Uh. right."  
  
"Hey down there," Storm's voice came over the loudspeaker. "Are you two ready?"  
  
"Ready, Storm," Cyclops told her.  
  
"I'm activating program 1.049," she told them.  
  
"What's that?" Glow asked Cyclops.  
  
Before he could answer, the air in the room began to shimmer. The holographic projectors hummed to life and suddenly they found themselves in the middle of a very empty Central Park  
  
"You're kidding right?" Glow couldn't believe her eyes.  
  
"This is your session Glow. Disable the program by disabling the targets," Cyclops said to her.  
  
"What targets?" she asked incredulous.  
  
He pointed to a few benches and some trees, an empty horse carriage.  
  
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," she mumbled to herself.  
  
Glow activated her nimbus and lifted herself until she was floating in the exact dead center of the illusion. She curled herself into a tight ball. The yellow nimbus glowed brighter and brighter until Cyclops had to turn away. Her body crackled with white and blue energy. Without warning, she suddenly unfolded, thrusting her arms into the air above her and pointing her toes straight down. Electricity flowed from her body in all directions. The illusion began to shimmer and then crackle. Parts of the real wall behind the hologram could be seen as Glow systematically began to shut down the individual projection panels.  
  
"Fascinating," Xavier murmured.  
  
"Of course, the object of the Danger Room is to disable the program in the shortest amount of time possible," he barked a short laugh.  
  
"You mind letting us in on the joke?" Wolverine asked.  
  
"She's not defeating the scenario. She's defeating the Danger Room itself, burning out the panels that project the hologram," Xavier said, pointing to a schematic on the computer console in front of him. "She's moving in circular sweeps and she's leaving Cyclops' panel untouched somehow."  
  
"She has incredible power if she considers this the extra energy," Storm watched in awe.  
  
"What amazes me is not the raw power, but the intensive control she has over it." Xavier scratched his chin in thought. "I wonder."  
  
"Wonder what?" Wolverine asked, never taking his eyes off the woman in the room below them.  
  
Xavier never answered him.  
  
"Excuse me Cyclops, but would you mind moving over?" Glow said. She'd floated slowly down to the ground. "The panel you're standing on is the last one active and I've still got some juice left."  
  
"Sure thing," he said, obligingly moving.  
  
Glow pointed to the last little patch of Central Park green and a slow stream of yellow electricity coursed out of her. The panel flickered, went into static and then died just as she cut off her energy feed. Glow's nimbus faded away entirely.  
  
She turned to Cyclops. "Well, I feel better. Don't you?"  
  
She walked past him and to the doors that were opening. Xavier, Storm, and Wolverine were on the other side of it.  
  
"I think I broke your room," she thumbed back over her shoulder at the completely disabled Danger Room.  
  
"I'm pretty sure you did," Xavier said. "It will give us something to work on for a while though."  
  
"You'd better go get Jubilee and Bobby," Storm pointed to the elevator. "They've been waiting for you upstairs on the main level."  
  
"Coming?" Glow turned to Wolverine, sliding her hands into her back jeans pockets.  
  
He saw her true eye color for the first time. Her eyes were a clear, startling blue.  
  
"Yeah, sure." He walked just a bit behind her as they headed out.  
  
"Did we have to take this one?" Jubilee complained. "It's funny looking. We could have pulled up in the Mustang."  
  
"I think the Jeep is cool," Bobby said in protest.  
  
"I think you both are going to give me a headache," Logan stated as he stared at the red light in front of him, willing it to turn green.  
  
"I think you're holding up bravely," Sara ruffled his hair and then turned around to face the teens sitting in the back seat. "I'm going to stop at that Sears Storm mentioned and pick up my stuff really quick. After that we've got a free day. Anywhere you want to go?"  
  
"The Gap!" "The Arcade!" was the simultaneous answer.  
  
The light finally changed and Logan floored it to beat the next one.  
  
"Logan can drive. oh sure. I should have known that wasn't true," Sara snorted.  
  
"We're here," Logan announced, pulling into the parking lot of the mall and taking the first available space. "And in one piece I might add."  
  
"Come on kids, Grumpy can catch up with us," Sara unbuckled her seat belt and stepped out of the jeep. The young man and woman followed her lead. Logan kept silent, locked the car and followed the other three. Once inside the mall, Sara shrugged off her denim jacket and tied it around her waist.  
  
The group gathered around her as their unofficial leader. "All right. I need to do my shopping so you two can go to The Gap or the Arcade or wherever while I'm running my errands. We meet back here in an hour and a half. We'll go to the food court afterwards for lunch and then decide what to do with the rest of the afternoon."  
  
"Sounds good to me," Jubilee waved, and was off. Bobby trotted after her.  
  
"Remember be back here in one and a half!" the orange-haired woman called after them.  
  
"And where am I supposed to be going, Ms. Social Director Ma'am?" Logan asked her sarcastically.  
  
She gave him a crooked smile and leaned into him slightly, bumping him with her hip. "You can either follow them, follow me, or do your own thing. Whatever makes you happy. Whatever you decide I promise though, I'll buy you lunch since I ate your breakfast."  
  
She walked away, fluffing out her mane of hair with one hand. Wolverine shrugged and followed her, telling himself he had nowhere better to be. 


	11. Enter the Future Part Eleven

The kids were late meeting them back at the agreed upon spot. Bobby showed up ten minutes late, and Jubilee had to be tracked down. Fortunately, with Logan there, that didn't take too long. The four of them agreed on a small Italian restaurant in one corner of the food court and entered it.  
  
A too-young waitress with frazzled hair and nerves seated them at a table. She took their orders and whisked away before they could tell her she hadn't asked them what they wanted to drink.  
  
Sara shrugged and untied her jacket from her waist and hung it over the back of her chair. Logan took his own brown leather coat off and slung it over the back of his own seat. The teens chattered at them excitedly about what they'd done that morning. Bobby apparently owned the new spot in the high score list for an arcade game called Dragon Ball Z. Jubilee had found the mother of all sales at Rave. The kids finally shut up when the food came. Logan held the waitress' arm to keep her there long enough for the four to tell her what they wanted for drinks. She noted it down absently and skipped away again.  
  
"Betcha she forgets to bring them," Logan said out of the corner of his mouth.  
  
"I'd lose if I took that bet," Sara answered him.  
  
"So what do you want to do?" Jubilee asked the two adults. "See a movie? Do some more shopping?"  
  
"Go back to the arcade?" Bobby interjected helpfully.  
  
"You keep playin' those games and you're not going to have a brain left," Logan warned him.  
  
"We need to be back by four. I've got work to do and you've got chores waiting," Sara told them. "That leaves us about another forty minutes or so. We'll go to one more store - all of us, together (she said the last part staring first at Jubilee and then Logan who both sighed) - and then we'll head back."  
  
"Okay. How about that music shop upstairs?" Bobby agreed easily.  
  
"Sounds fine with me," Sara said. Jubilee nodded and Logan shrugged.  
  
"Our company isn't that boring, is it?" Sara asked the dark-haired man.  
  
"It's not the company. It's the setting." Logan wiped his mouth with his napkin and dropped it onto his now empty plate. "I hate crowds."  
  
"I know the feeling, but it's not bad every now and again," Sara answered. She motioned to the waitress to bring their check.  
  
When the check arrived Glow grabbed it before anyone else could see it. She rose, grabbing her jacket, her bags and made her way to the register to pay. The others caught up to her as she was getting her change back.  
  
"Lead the way kids. We old people will follow," she told the adolescents, tucking her money back in her wallet and then into her front jean pocket.  
  
She swung her two bags over her left shoulder and looped her other arm through Logan's and pulled him along so he wouldn't lag behind.  
  
The kids scattered to different sections of the music store when they reached it. Sara, as if realizing for the first time she'd been walking arm-in-arm with Logan, blushed and let go of him. She picked a music section of her own to browse and left him to his own thoughts. Glow became involved in going through the collection of late 60's early 70's music. She picked up a Janis Joplin CD and started to read the back of it.  
  
"Joplin, huh?"  
  
She turned around, completely surprised. Logan stood behind her. She stammered, "She's always been one of my favorites. I grew up listening to my brother blasting her from his 8-track stereo. It seems so long ago."  
  
He took a step closer to her and pretended to read the back of the CD. "So which song's your favorite out of this collection?"  
  
She turned back to the list and quickly scanned it. "Oh definitely this one, 'Me and Bobby McGee'."  
  
"Why?" His lips were right next to her ear now.  
  
She caught her breath and answered, "There's this one line that says freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. I just think it kinda describes my life, you know?"  
  
She turned to face him and almost jumped at how close he was to her. Their lips were bare centimeters apart. He took the side of her cheek in his hand. "Yeah, I know."  
  
He pressed his lips to hers in a soft kiss. When they pulled their lips apart she leaned against him, resting her forehead on his shoulder.  
  
"I have a confession to make," she spoke softly.  
  
"What's that?"  
  
"That was my first kiss."  
  
Logan pulled back from her, startled. He held onto her shoulders and looked into her eyes and saw the truth of her statement. "I'm surprised."  
  
"I've spent the last thirty-three years of my life either as a guinea pig or hunting for those who made me one." She gave him a crooked smile. "Doesn't leave you any time for a love life."  
  
"I'm sorry. I didn't know. I don't want you to think. " He began. She silenced him with one finger over his lips.  
  
"I liked it. Thank you." Sara gazed at him before shifting her eyes to a point behind him. "But maybe we could continue this conversation when we don't have two people spying on us from over the top of the 'golden oldies' section."  
  
Logan turned with a curious eye to see Jubilee and Bobby stand up from where they'd been crouched down behind the display.  
  
"I think it's time we all went home. Don't you?" Glow asked the kids, motioning them out in front of her. As she put the Joplin CD back she took hold of Logan's hand.  
  
He squeezed her hand back, and then released it as they followed the adolescents out of the mall.  
  
The four mutants had timed their arrival back home perfectly. The build-up of electricity in Glow's body was starting to turn her eyes orange again. By the time they'd reached the mansion her pupils were neon. Jean was also out of her classes, had eaten something, and was ready to get going on their research.  
  
The two women had sequestered themselves back in the research lab in the lower level. Jean was starting to make some headway in reassembling the data on the procedure that gave Logan his adimantium skeleton. She had no idea what Glow was looking for, but the other woman had been typing furiously, keeping multiple windows open and even doing some coding in DOS mode.  
  
"Oh, my G-d."  
  
Jean turned to ask Glow what she'd found, but stopped. The woman was shaking from head to toe; her skin pale, and her eyes wide.  
  
"What is it?" The telepath asked softly with concern.  
  
"I think I'm gonna be sick." Glow got up and moved away from the screen. She waved Jean to her seat and walked to the wall leaning against it and taking deep breaths.  
  
Jean sat down and began to read out loud. "Log book Day 12 of the Weapon X Procedure. I now realize that transferring this process over to the mutant designated Glow will be impractical. I had hoped that infusing her skeleton with the adimantium alloy would boost her conductivity beyond the currently useful state. It has come to my attention that she would not survive this process, as she does not possess the healing ability. Research will be initiated on how to reproduce the mutant's healing factor so that it may be used in others. I had an argument with the doctor who appears to be in charge of this experiment. He is wasting this mutant's time and talents trying to develop the perfect weapon for the military. With his healing capabilities the cure for every known disease to man could be housed within his body."  
  
"Now I think I'm going to be sick," Jean blanched when she finished reading. "They're talking about you. and Logan, like you're not even sentient."  
  
"Welcome to life with Future Tech." Glow sat down on a couch nearby. "How. how. I mean, what do I tell him? How do I tell him? How do you face something like this? And that's not even the half of it. Read the entry after."  
  
"I'm not sure I want to." Jean nevertheless scrolled down the screen and began to read out loud again. "Log book Day 17, Weapon X Procedure. The test subject designated Weapon X has become mentally unstable. Despite my advisement to terminate him while we are still in control of his mind and body."  
  
Jean gasped and grew even paler before she continued. "The doctors renting this facility resist. Weapon X has already killed three of his attendants in his madness before he could be subdued. The doses of tranquilizers being injected into him to render and keep him unconscious are currently eight times the normal dosage for a man of his size. His regenerative capabilities are astounding and it is regretful that I was not allowed to test him before he degenerated into this state. I am recommending to the chair people of F.T.L. that they conclude this project and eject the current renters before something untoward happens."  
  
"There's a break in the entry where the file was corrupted," Glow said as she got up and leaned over Jean, typing a few keys. "Here's the rest of it I found lumped in with some medical stats."  
  
Jean began her macabre reading once more. "I warned them. I warned the board. I warned the scientists of the mutant's instability. Now they have no choice but to shut down this lab and cover up the mess that happened here. Weapon X finally succeeded in breaking free of his controllers and escaped, leaving a wake of blood in his path. According to the one survivor I found upon my return to the compound from my meeting, the subject was heading further north, naked, bleeding profusely, and howling incoherently. It is my fervent hope that he is too weak in his current condition to survive, and passes away before anything else can happen."  
  
"That's it. The log just ends." Jean scrolled down further but found nothing else.  
  
"I think I need a break," Glow stood up and walked out of the room.  
  
"Sure," Jean called after her. "I understand completely."  
  
She turned back to the screen in bewilderment. How could a single group of people be so monstrous? She saved the work Glow had been doing and tried to shut down the computer.  
  
An error message popped up, "Windows still running application. Shut down now or allow application to continue running?"  
  
"Application? What application? I turned everything off!" Jean was puzzled until she looked at the little blinking light on the modem icon. She opened it and her mouth dropped. A massive amount of information was being transmitted. Now that she knew what she was looking for she quickly located the file being sent and opened it.  
  
"Professor," she thought telepathically, projecting her comments to Xavier. "I think I have something you should see." 


	12. Enter the Future Part Twelve

Glow headed upstairs to walk the cobwebs out of her mind. She'd run into Storm almost immediately and the other mutant invited her to join the faculty in the dining room for a late dinner. Glow accepted readily. Logan and Cyclops were already there when she came in. As the sat down she listened to Storm talk about how happy the two teens had been on their day off despite the chores and shook herself out of her darker mood. Glow couldn't remember the last time she'd had so much fun in a single day. A day just for relaxing, shopping with the kids and Logan, having lunch out for a change, not being afraid of the surrounding crowd. She almost felt normal. Almost. If it hadn't been for the work she'd had to do with Jean once she'd gotten home with those horrible files that had upset them both she'd still be in a good mood. There'd also been no time to talk to Logan about what happened this afternoon at the record store. She brushed her fingers against her lips in the barest of memories.  
  
She glanced across the dinner table at Logan and wondered again if she should have stayed this long. He caught her staring at him and smiled at her. She blushed and pulled a lock of her orange hair in front of her face so he couldn't see.  
  
"So Glow, how have you been enjoying our hospitality?" Xavier asked as he advanced into the dining room.  
  
"Oh, everything's been great. Especially since no one made me cook," she answered flippantly. "Which was very wise on Storm's part. I've been known to ruin cereal."  
  
"You wouldn't think a woman who eats as much as you do wouldn't be able to cook," Cyclops noted.  
  
Glow blushed again, not out of embarrassment, but the slight heat of defensiveness. "It takes a lot to fuel my power, whether or not I'm actively using it."  
  
"So it would seem," Xavier said, maneuvering his wheel chair in at the head of the table the teachers were all gathered at.  
  
Glow gave him a slightly puzzled look. At her raised eyebrow Xavier explained. "It would also seem that your mutant ability to control electricity is not your only gift."  
  
"What do you mean?" Glow asked guardedly. She reviewed her actions mentally and realized her mistake. She'd left Jean with her computer before ending her program. It might still be possible to do damage control depending on how much they'd found out. Jean hadn't been left alone with the program for more then five minutes.  
  
"Sara McLain, otherwise known as Glow, in the captive care of The Future of Technology Laboratories for twenty-three years, trained in computer manipulation- hacking - trained in strategic logic, trained in hand to hand combat, trained in field medical techniques, shall I go on?" Xavier announced in his ever-calm voice.  
  
"Doesn't seem like you have to," Glow said as she pushed away her plate and folded her hands, resting her elbows on the table. She cursed herself and her own inattention. There would be no damage control now. "It seems you've got almost everything covered."  
  
"What's he talking about, Sara?" Logan asked, staring at her with disbelieving eyes.  
  
"Future Tech trained her to be a mercenary," Xavier answered for her. "And it would seem that even after her liberation from them she continues these activities. I believe you call yourselves the Future Tech Four?"  
  
"Team. Future Tech Team," she corrected. "Why?"  
  
"Why what?" Xavier feigned innocence.  
  
"Why bring all this up now?" She started to crack her knuckles, keeping her eyes on her hands and refusing to meet Logan's brown eyes.  
  
"It has come to my attention that you have been sending the files you and Jean have been working on to an unknown computer e-mail system," the professor said.  
  
"You found my transmissions," she stated softly.  
  
"Yes, but we're having a devil of a time tracking them," Xavier admitted with some chagrin.  
  
"You're not likely to be able too. I'm a decent hacker. But I'm nowhere in the league of my team second. She's got those signals bouncing off of so many terminals, servers, and satellites that you aren't likely to find it." Glow rubbed her eyes and laughed into her hands. "And if you do, it'll probably look like everything got sent to the computer next to the one I was using. She's got an over-developed sense of humor. Trust me when I say you're wasting your time."  
  
"Thanks for letting us know," Cyclops broke in. "Anything else you'd care to tell us?"  
  
"Not really," she sighed and leaned back in her seat. "So what's the problem with me sending a few e-mails I want to keep private?"  
  
"I know you've been looking for something specific in those disks," Jean said softly, entering the room behind the Professor. "We want to know exactly what you want with Dr. Maxwell DeLeon and what you intend to do with him when you find him."  
  
Glow sat up stock straight and stared at Jean until the other woman looked away, uneasy. "Damn it. DAMN IT! Another two hours Xavier, I would have been gone with no one the wiser. Why NOW?" She stood up, knocking her chair over then kicking it viciously.  
  
"Because it's my duty to make sure that my students and people are safe. Because it is my duty to insure that the human population we live with and in do not have reason to hate or fear us."  
  
"Self-righteous bullshit," Glow hissed, slamming her hands down into the tabletop. "What's one man's life to you?"  
  
"Depends on the man," Xavier retorted meeting her eyes with an unwavering gaze.  
  
Everyone at the table rose on guard now, even Logan who'd extracted his claws. Glow stopped her temper-tantrum and looked intently at him. "Fine. If you're all going to hate me, then you're going to hate me for the right reasons. You got a place we can talk?"  
  
"Jean, lead us to the Ready Room," Xavier instructed. "Logan, you bring up the rear with Scott."  
  
"An escort?" Glow asked, her previously cheerful voice deadly serious now. "What's the matter? Don't trust me?"  
  
"I will not dignify that with an answer."  
  
"You just did," Glow told him as she followed Xavier and Jean out of the dining room with the two men on her heels and Storm just off to her side.  
  
"So talk," Storm instructed, waving Glow into the room ahead of her.  
  
"I need the computer. I want to show you exactly what I'm talking about," Glow requested, her voice growing more and more solemn.  
  
Scott moved to block her from it, but Xavier motioned him away.  
  
"Thank you," she said, barely glancing at Scott as he moved. The tall woman sat down in front of the console and started typing in data at a furious rate. The lights in the room suddenly dimmed. "What the-?"  
  
In the center of the room a beam of red light projected down from the ceiling. The light changed to blue and began projecting an image of a man. Glow stared at it for a while and shrugged. "I was just going to call something up on the screen, but this works too."  
  
"The man you're looking at is Dr. Maxwell DeLeon, a mutant's worst nightmare. He's the man behind the science at Future Tech. Or at least he was up until the destruction of the F.T.L. headquarters in Maine, which my three teammates and myself were responsible for. He's been in hiding for the past decade and the four of us have been tracking him all that time."  
  
"He is responsible for ordering the deaths of 154 mutants during the course of his experiments. We consider him to be a monster of the worst sort. You read his logs Jean. You know what he thinks of us. how he thinks of us." Glow's voice became slightly manic and haunted. "158 of us went into that laboratory. Only four of us came out alive. I was the first one in and the last one out."  
  
She shook her head and drew herself back into the present, not noticing the shiver that swept through Jean and the pained look on Wolverine's face.  
  
"We're not sure if he's still currently performing experiments on mutants although it's highly likely. It has come to our attention that he is no longer focusing his research on just biological subjects and DNA experiments but has expanded to include development of equipment that could possibly be harmful to human and mutant life."  
  
Glow punched a few keys and called up a new image.  
  
Wolverine stared at it, snarling. "That's the machine Magneto tried to kill us all with."  
  
"Guess who built it?" Glow snorted derisively. "My team second intercepted a message from the mutant known as Magneto to DeLeon requesting that this machine be custom built to his design specifications. We almost seized DeLeon before he was able to complete delivery of the mutation machine to his client. Almost. We really fell through on that one. I am grateful to you for stopping Magneto before he could unleash the full power of that apparatus."  
  
"I don't understand something," Jean shook her head. "If DeLeon experimented on mutants, why would he work with one to built that monstrosity?"  
  
"Are you kidding? Magneto guaranteed him hundreds of thousands of new test subjects." Glow swallowed, as if nauseated. "He is just insane enough to consider this a giant science fair project. The Future Tech Team is getting very close to locating him. Thanks to Magneto's current news coverage we've had a better time of tracking his erstwhile associate."  
  
"What are you going to do when you catch up with him?" Wolverine asked.  
  
"Kill him," Glow answered calmly, meeting his gaze. "I have 158 lives to pay him back for. 154 that didn't make it out and four who did."  
  
Glow typed a few more bars of data and turned back to the hologram projector to show them the new image.  
  
"This is the F.T.L. compound where I met Logan. I was here to glean information about DeLeon's whereabouts. We had reason to believe that he may have used this lab within the past five years for some of his earlier tests of the Magneto machine's prototype. Hence the general state of disrepair the lab was in when we got there."  
  
"This is some pretty heavy stuff. What I don't get is why you followed Wolverine back here," Scott said.  
  
"We knew of the so-called X-Men's involvement in Magneto's capture despite the cover-ups," Glow explained, tracing one finger on the edge of the counter top. "We were curious about the connection between Magneto, the machine, DeLeon, and ourselves. Running into Logan was a spot of pure luck. I spent the entire night after I knocked him out in telepathic communication with my team working out the details for this plan. I would endear myself to him, get him to take me back here and do some reconnaissance on who you were and what side you're on."  
  
She hung her head in honest shame. "If I hadn't run into you there, we would have arranged a 'chance meeting' with one of you sometime in the next few months. Logan showing up out of the blue like that just speed up our plan a bit, and gave us access to a superior computer on which to do our research."  
  
"You used me," Wolverine whispered, half-dazed. He laughed, "What a freakin' sucker."  
  
"Logan I." She looked at him for a long time and then sighed. "It doesn't matter now, does it? Whatever I say you're not going to believe now that you've made up your mind to hate me."  
  
"It never mattered what I said from the beginning," Wolverine spat back. "Because you'd already made up your mind to betray me."  
  
Glow bit her lip and blinked back what looked like tears. "That's okay. I understand. So Professor, now that you have this knowledge what do you intend to do?"  
  
"I intend to digest it. You've filled in a lot of gaps in what we knew of Magneto's activities. It makes me worry," the professor answered.  
  
"You're going to sit on your ass and do nothing while that doctor runs around free and dangerous to everyone, not just mutant kind." Glow sounded disgusted. "Even after all I've told you."  
  
She sat back in her seat and rested her arms down the sides of the chair. Glow spoke to the air. "I consider this mission a scrap, Mez. Pull me out. I repeat, pull me out."  
  
"Wait a minute! What the hell do you think." Scott didn't even have time to finish his sentence. There was a rush of wind and Glow was gone without a trace. 


	13. Enter the Future Part Thirteen

Twenty miles away, the distance between the two mutants and Xavier's School was still growing as an orange-haired woman held herself in stony silence. The blonde man carrying her as he ran at sub-sonic speed finally brought himself to ask her something.  
  
"So what's the matter?" He asked with a British accent.  
  
"They're good people, Badlands. And I hurt them," Glow answered and huddled closer to him. She almost whispered the next sentence, "I hurt him."  
  
Badlands frowned and furrowed his brows together in concern for his team leader but did not say anything.  
  
"Where the hell did she go?" Scott shouted.  
  
"I'm assuming that one of her associates pulled her out. I can no longer sense her on the grounds or anywhere within a five-mile radius. I'd have to use Cerebro to get a confirmation, but I don't think I'd be able to track her anyway," Xavier said as calmly as he could. "These are her other teammates."  
  
Xavier wheeled himself to the control panel where Glow had been sitting. He called up what little information he had on the Future Tech Team. Three more holograms sprang to life, with a fourth hologram of Glow at the forefront of them.  
  
"The woman dressed in blue with the brown hair and rather odd eye make-up is Auroara Stanley, better known as Whirlwind. Her ability to control air and wind far outstrips Storm's own powers in that area. Do you remember Hurricane Clyde?" Xavier asked.  
  
"I remember, the hurricane was predicted to be one of the worst ones to hit the Carolinas in decades when it suddenly changed course and veered out into the open ocean," Storm said. "That was only last summer, but it was regarded as a small miracle."  
  
"That was no miracle, that was Whirlwind's doing. She hails from South Carolina apparently, and still has some affection for the place," the professor corrected.  
  
"You're telling us that this woman has the power to move hurricanes?" Jean asked, a bit flabbergasted.  
  
"She's also the team's second in command from what I gather." Xavier motioned to the only male member of the team. "The blonde gentleman is one Michael Clayton, alias Badlands. We're not quite sure just what it is he does. The final member, the Asian-American woman in black and red, is known only as The Mezmerizer. A telepath of unknown power and ability."  
  
"The telepath she said she runs with, the one who taught her how to shield herself from mental probes." Jean shook her head, amazed at such a highly organized team with such incredible powers.  
  
"There have been rumors of The Mezmerizer long before she joined the Tech Team," Xavier informed them. "She may well be the mutant responsible for the rise of the New Realm, working alongside the entity known as DreamWeb."  
  
"The what?" Logan said. "Do you people invent this stuff when I leave, just to confuse me when I return? If you knew about all this before, why didn't you tell us?"  
  
"Because, Logan. I got snowed in as well. Glow 'suckered' me with her act as easily as she did everyone else," the professor admitted with some chagrin. "Compared to The Future Tech Team, the X-Men are rank amateurs who have not half the years nor experience of working together."  
  
"Now the big question is, what the hell are we going to do about it?" Cyclops crossed his arms. "Our security has been compromised. There's also the distinct possibility that we enabled Glow and her team to get information that could lead to the death of a man, possibly several."  
  
"I'm not so sure that's a bad thing," Jean whispered.  
  
"What are you saying, Jean?" Charles Xavier asked as he turned to look at his second oldest student.  
  
"I read some of the journal entries of DeLeon's that were recovered from those disks. Logan. he talked about you like you were a- a rabid animal that needed to be put to sleep!" Jean pushed a few strands of her red hair out of her face and started pacing. "He called Glow a 'useful' mutant and was disappointed that he couldn't do to her what the doctors in charge of Logan's surgery did to him! He was hoping a metal skeleton would boost her electrical capacity!"  
  
"Professor, I'm not condoning what she and her team are doing. But knowing that such a man even exists terrifies me. Maybe Glow has the right of it this once. The X-Men weren't meant for such things, but these people seem to be made of harder stuff."  
  
"If we let them kill this one man then shall we be any better then Magneto in his misguided attempts to save the mutant race?" Storm asked.  
  
The room fell silent. Logan sat down, flesh pale and sweating as he thought over everything that Glow, Jean, and everyone else had said. He put his face in his hands, and sighed. He got up, brushed past Cyclops and headed out the door.  
  
Scott moved to follow but Jean put a restraining hand on him.  
  
"Let him be. There's nothing we could do anyway. We don't know where the doctor is, or where Glow's team is," she told her fiancé.  
  
Logan made his way out of the mansion, finding a sudden need to get some fresh air. At this time of the evening students were mostly in their rooms studying or in the recreation room so the outer ground were empty.  
  
Logan made his way to the poolside and sat down on a lawn chair near the edge.  
  
How could he have misjudged someone like that? His instincts were never wrong. Something about her should have tipped him off, something, even her scent! But she'd slipped in under his radar so well that he actually thought he could trust her. Actually thought that they could.  
  
"Logan?" a soft southern accented voice spoke behind him.  
  
He whirled around only to find Rogue behind him. He relaxed again, kicking himself for being so distracted that a kid could sneak up on him. "Don't you have homework or something?"  
  
"I can finish it later," she said, sitting down next to him. At his glare she added, "I promise."  
  
"I heard what happened," Rogue said after a moment of awkward silence.  
  
"Oh? Just what did you hear?" He said as he tried to sound bored and non-committal.  
  
"Jubilee and Bobby told me they saw you and Glow kiss at the record store today." Rogue swallowed as if she wasn't sure she should be putting her nose in his business. "And now Mr. Summers and the other teachers are walking around looking upset, and Glow's room is empty. Miss Grey said that all of Glow's things are gone, including the disks and they don't know how it happened."  
  
Logan snorted. "Rumor mill works fast here."  
  
"Why did Glow leave? I thought, well, it seemed obvious that she liked you," Rogue asked. "We all thought she'd stay."  
  
Logan glanced at her quickly and turned back to staring at the water, pondering his answer. "She used me to get in here. She's a mercenary who leads a team of them. When she got the information she needed for the completion of her mission she bolted. And no, we don't know how she got out - she just disappeared in front of the lot of us. This is the first I've heard of her things going with her though."  
  
"Oh." Rogue turned to stare at the water, unsure of what the proper response should be. She was saved from having to answer by the sound of feet approaching. The man and the girl turned to see Jubilee and Bobby approaching, with Kitty on their heels.  
  
"What is this? Don't any of you have better things to do?" Logan asked incredulously.  
  
"We heard." Bobby sat down on the ground on the other side of Logan, and the two remaining girls sat on the ground in front of him.  
  
"Is no part of my life private in this place? And how did you hear anything? It only just happened!" Logan wondered.  
  
"We're sorry, Mr. Logan," Bobby told him. "We liked her, she didn't treat us like the other adults here, present company excluded of course. She was more like a big sister than a teacher or mom or something."  
  
"And you know this from the one day she spent here?" Logan sounded skeptical.  
  
"Well, she was cool. And we thought she liked you," Jubilee said weakly.  
  
"Since when did a bunch of teenagers get involved in my love life?"  
  
"Since you became an X-man," Kitty told him. "You're family now."  
  
The silence that settled on the motley group was comforting now, rather than awkward.  
  
Inside the mansion Jean, Ororo and Xavier watched from an upper story window.  
  
"I don't understand, what do the kids see in him?" Storm asked. "They flocked to him instantly."  
  
"They understand him better than they do us," Jean said.  
  
At Storm's puzzled look Xavier took up the thread of the conversation and explained. "We've all been where those youngsters are now. Logan, on the other hand, is still there. They're all trying to find out who they are, what their identities should be. We already know who we are and what we shall be, and the memory of our struggle to get to this point in time is fading. They can relate better to him because he's still going through it."  
  
"They understand Logan because his pain is their pain," Jean whispered as she stared at the group below them in the pool's courtyard.  
  
"Professor! Professor!" Scott came running up to them and paused to catch his breath.  
  
"What is it Scott?" Xavier turned to his first student.  
  
"You have to come see this." 


	14. Enter the Future Part Fourteen

"Glow! Whirlwind! You have to come see this!" Badlands shouted at the top of his lungs. He'd arrived with his team leader and her belongings back at their New York headquarters a mere six minutes after he'd grabbed her at the Westchester school. He'd been watching TV to rest as Glow debriefed the other two. He didn't need to hear Glow's report over again, as he'd been there when it happened. Badlands hadn't waited for the time limit his commander had imposed on him to be up before going in after their leader. It was a damned good thing he had too. The X-Men would have been on her before Mez could teleport her out, and this way they were able to recover her belongings, including the precious disks.  
  
The blonde man was horribly loyal to Glow; it was she that kept him sane enough inside the labs until The Mezmerizer's coming. When he'd met that little woman, so outwardly fragile, so inwardly strong he knew he'd met his salvation. The Mezmerizer had allowed them the final key to escaping that horrid place. Her telepathic communication between the prisoners enabled them to plot without being discovered. Afterward, she'd done him the great honor of becoming his wife.  
  
He heard the footsteps of the others enter the little living room of the apartment they were using as a temporary headquarters.  
  
"What is it?" The Mezmerizer asked, sitting down next to her husband.  
  
He motioned to the television were a newscast had interrupted his program. Glow and Whirlwind stood behind them on the couch.  
  
Whirlwind sucked in her breath. "My God."  
  
"The government has completely sealed off the area and is not allowing anyone through their barricades. Nevertheless we shall continue to broadcast for as long as they allow us," the on-site reporter was saying. "About an hour ago the mutant known to the world as Magneto escaped from his plastic prison. Several guards were hurt during the escape, but fortunately no one was killed. No leads are currently available as to the mutant's whereabouts. People are encouraged to remain at home in this area until the scene can be completely secured."  
  
Badlands clicked off the television. "That was the second repeat of that broadcast. My guess is that the government shut off their cameras and this is all the station had to show."  
  
"Whirlwind." Glow started.  
  
"On it." The woman with the shaggy brown hair slid into a seat in front of a laptop computer. She logged on and started a furious search. "We can assume that he's had outside help. There was no way he could have gotten out of there on his own. There! I'm into the prison's bandwidth and I've got a direct link to their communications systems. They don't know I'm here."  
  
"What's going on there?" Glow asked, worried.  
  
"The place was torn apart," [Whirlwind] reported. "From the outside in, giant holes have been rendered through the whole building until it reached the center where Magneto was being held. Then -and this is the weird part- the hole in his cage actually comes from the inside out."  
  
"It's like some giant fist punched holes through everything," Mezmerizer said, looking at the security camera's pictures. "He had to have had outside help, some of the holes are through materials that his power would have no effect on, and nothing was hurled through the walls to make those holes."  
  
"You're right. Look there-what's that?" Badlands pointed to a stilled image of the inside of Magneto's cell.  
  
"Some sort of distortion. hang on." Whirlwind clicked on the image and started running it through several enlargements and filters to clarify the picture.  
  
"There we go; it's the best I can do," she said as the new picture slowly downloaded onto the screen. "He's wearing something, or producing some sort of field around himself that shields him from normal cameras. The only reason we picked this up could be due to a mechanical or other sort of failure for a second or two in whatever's making him invisible to everyone else. No one's noticed this picture yet. I don't know if I should discreetly bring it to their attention or not."  
  
The enlarged image showed a man bending to pick up Magneto. He was dressed in a white and green costume with some sort of strange wide belt around his waist. He was tall, possibly near or past Glow's own height of six feet, broad shouldered, and well muscled. His face spoke of age though, this man was well wrinkled around his the corners of his mouth and eyes. He was tanned, and amazingly had the same orange-red hair as Glow.  
  
A soft moan escaped the lips of Future Tech Team's leader and she sank to her knees.  
  
"Glow? What's wrong?" Whirlwind looked at her with worry.  
  
"Is there no end to the hell I have to endure this day?" Glow moaned, hugging herself.  
  
"Why? What? You know him?" Badlands asked.  
  
"That's my brother Russell. He's been missing for years," she told them.  
  
"Oh, hell," was all Whirlwind could say.  
  
A man dressed in a white bodysuit with green trim hovered in the air to get his bearings for a moment inside a glowing blue bubble-like shield of his own devising. Next to him, in another shield floated the man named Eric Lecher, otherwise known as Magneto.  
  
"So tell me young man, just what do you intend to do with me now?" Magneto asked him, sounding for the entire world as if he was enjoying himself.  
  
"I'm taking you back to the woman who was hired to recover you," he answered. "After which your well-being is of no concern to me."  
  
"And who might this mysterious woman be? And who hired her?" Magneto pressed.  
  
"Her name is DreamWeb. And if I were you, I'd kill her before you even think about saying hello. She is dangerous to mutant and human alike," the man in white and green cautioned as he flew ever closer to the drop off point DreamWeb had told him about. "And I don't know who hired her. All I know is that I want to be rid of this as soon as possible."  
  
"Then you aren't willingly in her employ?" Magneto sounded interested.  
  
"Sir, no one is willingly in her employ."  
  
The X-Men stood around the TV in the rec room with stunned expressions on their faces. They watched the newsreel footage of Magneto's escape, horrified. The press knew little more than when the story first broke. However, as soon as Xavier had seen the original story Scott fetched him to see, he put Jean and Storm on monitoring duty. The two women were even now, following the story from different angles. Storm was performing an Internet search, not unlike the one Whirlwind had done. Jean, however, was using Cerebro. Ever since her first attempt to use Cerebro to locate Rogue six months ago had proved successful, Xavier had been training her to use it. Apparently the stress of the situation during her first use of the telepathic enhancer had finished unlocking her powers, bringing Jean's capabilities close to Xavier's own.  
  
"This can't be a coincidence," Scott was saying. "Magneto's escape so close on the heels of Glow's appearance and subsequent disappearance."  
  
"She had no reason to help him escape. She thanked us for stopping him in the first place." Wolverine couldn't explain the perverse need to defend her.  
  
"But she might be hoping that he'll take them straight to DeLeon," Scott reasoned. "That man, the one whose powers we don't know about could have done that kind of damage to get in and get Magneto."  
  
Storm walked back in with a printout in her hand. "Take a look at what I found."  
  
She handed it to Xavier and he studied the picture she'd given him. "Well, whoever this is, it is most certainly not one of Glow's people. Although it is funny how alike they seem in their hair and facial features."  
  
"And I suppose you're going to tell us that that's her father?" Wolverine snorted, wondering why he was defending her again-she had betrayed him after all.  
  
"No, too young I think, to be her father," Xavier said speculatively as he gazed at the picture. "Well, we know his aid in the escape. Now we can do some serious looking for him. I'm going to join Jean in Cerebro."  
  
No one followed him as he left for the lower levels of the building.  
  
"I suppose this means that we should suit up," Wolverine said. "We have to bring Magneto back. He can't just be allowed to run around free."  
  
"I'm in agreement with you on that last bit," Cyclops said. "But I'm not so sure that you should come along. Your emotions are too tied up in this right now."  
  
"They were last time. Didn't stop me then." Wolverine walked up till he was a bare inch away from the other man's face. "As a matter of fact, I saved your bacon, Cyke. It must burn you up inside that a man like me saved your life."  
  
He strode from the room, also headed for the secret lower levels. Storm looked at Cyclops for a moment, turned on her heel, and followed the older man out.  
  
Xavier and Jean were exiting Cerebro together when Storm, Cyclops, and Wolverine came striding up to them, fully suited. Xavier looked grave. Jean looked tired. Cyclops went to her side and put his arm around her.  
  
"We found them. I was able to glean enough from the rescuer's mind to discover his identity and their destination," Jean said.  
  
"Who is he? Another member of the Brotherhood of Mutants?" Storm guessed.  
  
"No," Jean's voice cracked.  
  
"His name is Russell McLain, he calls himself Shield," Xavier explained. "Apparently, he's Glow's brother."  
  
Wolverine paled. Cyclops looked slightly triumphant.  
  
"Are you sure?" Storm asked.  
  
"Positive. On the other hand, there was nothing to suggest that Shield has even been in contact with his sister for a long time," Xavier added.  
  
Wolverine relaxed his clenched fists, but not his stance. "Where's Shield taking Magneto?"  
  
"Atlantic City, New Jersey," Xavier told them.  
  
"Jersey? Great, bring nose plugs." Wolverine turned and went in the direction of the Blackbird's hanger.  
  
The Tech Team sat huddled around The Mezmerizer as she sat in the lotus position on the carpet, her hands pressed to the sides of her temples. She'd been casting her mind outward since Glow's revelation that the man who freed Magneto was her brother. They weren't going to interfere in the case more than to notify the proper authorities to the helper's identity, but that was before it got personal. There was no other option. Glow hadn't seen her brother since she was twelve, but she still knew him on sight- no matter how aged he was. She had to find out what was going on, and why he was in league with Magneto.  
  
"I got him!" The Mezmerizer let her hands collapse into her lap. She straightened out and stood up with the help of her husband.  
  
"Russell?" Glow asked hopefully.  
  
"Surprisingly, no. I couldn't read him at all. In fact, I picked up Magneto. But if they are still traveling together..." she began.  
  
"Then we'll find him," Glow finished.  
  
"Where are they?" Whirlwind asked.  
  
"Headed towards the Tropical Forest Casino and Resort in Atlantic City, New Jersey."  
  
"Ugh, Jersey?" Badlands wrinkled his nose. "Someone bring nose plugs."  
  
On the roof of the Tropical Forest Casino a blonde woman stood, dressed in pink thigh-high boots, a pink leotard with a silver belt, pink shoulder- length gloves, and a silver choker around her neck. The boots, as well as the gloves had the emblem of a silver spider web on them. Next to her stood a Native American Indian man half a head taller then her. He had his long black hair pulled back into a ponytail and was dressed plainly, in jeans, boots, a pale blue shirt, and a white lab coat over that. To the woman's other side stood a man, 6'6" with long blonde hair. He was her client; the man who'd hired her to recover his employer, Magneto. Sabretooth was beginning to think that this was a bad idea. Mystique was in a position were she couldn't communicate with him for fear of blowing her cover and Toad? Well, he was still indisposed. Still, someone had to get Magneto out of there; it's just a shame that it meant dealing with this cold-hearted bitch.  
  
"Are you sure he's close by?" the Native American asked.  
  
"Yes, David - Checkmate. I'm quite sure." DreamWeb closed her eyes and tilted her head back for a moment. "As a matter of fact, he should be along in another five minutes or so." She lowered her head and opened her eyes. "I chose the right man for the job."  
  
"I'm not so sure," Sabretooth growled. "It's obvious that someone helped Magneto escape, he caused too much damage to the prison. We're going to be twice as hunted now, since the escape was unfortunately publicized so much."  
  
"He's right. The plan was to make it look as if Magneto got out all on his own," Checkmate agreed. "It was also part of the plan to get him to slip in and out unnoticed."  
  
"I'm sure Shield will have a good reason for what he did," DreamWeb purred, a sound that seemed more dangerous than Sabertooth's growl. "If he doesn't, well, I just won't renew his contract."  
  
Neither of the men had time to answer for at that moment two specks of glowing blue appeared in the air. The glowing circles drew closer until the trio waiting on the rooftop of the casino could clearly see the forms of a man inside each of the globes. The spheres slowed their decent and moved in to land in front of the three.  
  
"I've got what you asked for and there's not a mark on him," Shield said, dropping the force field around his body, but maintaining the one around Magneto. He pulled off the wide belt with one hand and half tossed, half threw it at Checkmate. "You're little toy doesn't work very well with my power. My electro-magnetic fields kept disrupting it. I had to give up getting in quietly in exchange for getting out quickly. I don't think anyone saw me though. It lasted long enough before fizzing out and dying entirely."  
  
"See? I told you he had a good explanation." DreamWeb turned to the still- captive Magneto. "So this is the famous Magneto? I wouldn't have expected such... power, to come from someone so... antiquated."  
  
"Appearances may be deceiving my lady," Magneto told her. "I'll ignore your insult on account of the fact that you are the hired employee of my man Sabertooth."  
  
Magneto stood up straight and tall inside his glowing spherical prison. "Good to see you alive and well. I was not sure that you'd gotten away. I trust now that I am safe and sound, I may be released? Not to serve offense to my rescuer, the ride was most pleasant, but I am anxious to be about my business and well away from here."  
  
Magneto and Sabertooth both stiffened when Shield looked to DreamWeb for permission. She smiled at this subtle reinforcement of her power.  
  
"We still have business to transact," she said as she handed Sabertooth an Internet- ready Palm Pilot. "The accounts are all called up, you have only to transfer the other half of my fee."  
  
Sabertooth snarled as he punched in his PIN (Personal Identification Number) and transferred the rest of the money. DreamWeb took the Pilot back and double-checked to make sure the money was there and then nodded to Shield.  
  
The tall orange-haired man dropped the shield around Magneto and turned to his controller. "Well?"  
  
"Well what?" she asked, mildly amused.  
  
"May I go?" Shield asked stiffly.  
  
"You may, but remember-you're on-call for me from now on," DreamWeb told him with a self-satisfied smile.  
  
"You witch!" Shield lost control of his temper and dove towards her, not bothering with his mutant power, desiring to feel her neck between his own hands.  
  
DreamWeb glowed with a bright pink aura and Shield's attack stopped in mid- stride. He screamed and fell to his knees grabbing his head in pain.  
  
"How droll," Magneto said. "Mutant torturing mutant for a job well done. I think, Madame, that you are misusing a valuable resource."  
  
"Stay out of it, old man. Your time has passed. The New Realm is rising." Checkmate stepped in between Magneto and DreamWeb, stopping the fight before it started.  
  
The glow around DreamWeb faded as did Shield's screams. He lay there holding his sides; breath ragged and sobs racking his frame. "You got what you wanted Mr. Creed. Go home and be happy."  
  
"I don't think I could, in good conscience, allow you to retain control of this fine young man," Magneto protested with false banality. "He is too unique, too valuable, to be treated thusly."  
  
"Oh for crying out loud," Shield gasped. "I'm fifty, stop calling me a young man. Stop talking about me like I'm not even here. I am not some damned prize to be won- not a head of cattle to be sold at auction. I am human!"  
  
"Homo Superior, truly," Magneto corrected him.  
  
"Human," Shield spat back. "You're all just as human as I."  
  
"My brother speaks the truth in this."  
  
The entire group whirled. Behind them stood a woman six feet tall, with neon orange hair and matching orange eyes. She wore a green suit that appeared to be made out of some Kevlar/rubber hybrid. Her boots came to her knees, the suit was sleeveless, she wore gloves to protect her hands, and a cape was attached to the shoulder pads built into the suit.  
  
"Who are you?" Checkmate demanded. "How did you get up here?"  
  
"I flew," Glow answered his second question first.  
  
"Can't be. You're dead. I thought you must be, when I couldn't feel you anymore." Shield looked up, eyes wide. "Oh God, Sara? Is that you?"  
  
"I'm called Glow now, brother, just as you are Shield." Glow's softened as she looked at her older brother for the first time in decades. "And in another moment, you'll be free of DreamWeb's control."  
  
"What?" DreamWeb hissed. "I don't think so, upstart. Checkmate!"  
  
Checkmate pressed one of the many buttons on his belt. A green force field flew up around him. Thrusting out his hands towards the intruder, he made green plasma-like bursts fly out at her. Shield cried a warning, but Glow just stood there. A yellow nimbus surrounded Glow and her electricity flowed off her like rainwater on a rock. The plasma bursts were burned away before they could touch her.  
  
Shield felt something tickle the edge of his mind.  
  
"Don't worry, don't speak out loud. I'll have you free in a moment," a woman's voice whispered inside his head. He felt, rather than heard, the snap happen. The tether between himself and DreamWeb was gone. He was blissfully alone in his own mind. Shield stood up to his full height, only four inches taller than his sister. The blue aura of his electromagnetic force field surrounded him again. He lifted himself off the surface of the roof. Holding his hands out in front of him he began to generate a force wave and sent it to the group of villains below him.  
  
Magneto sensed it coming and whirled. Throwing his right arm out as if grabbing something thrown to him he laughed, "Thank you young pup! This will be most useful."  
  
Magneto turned and faced the massive satellite dish on top of the casino. Using his powers over magnetism he tore the twenty-foot wide dish, creaking and protesting, off the roof. He hurled it in Shield's direction.  
  
The other man barely had time to duck before the satellite dish flew past him, over the side of the building, and onto the people on the boardwalk.  
  
"Shield!" Glow shrieked. "The people!"  
  
Shield caught her eyes and nodded once, flying down and after the dish.  
  
"Damn you! Who are you that you could free him?" DreamWeb thundered, drawing stiletto knives from her boot tops.  
  
"She did not free him, Caroline. I did," a voice rang out in the minds of all present.  
  
"No, no, it can't be," DreamWeb whispered. "Not here, not now."  
  
The beautiful mutant, so confident and dangerous before, shrank back into herself. Checkmate dropped the strange field around his body and grabbed her, dragging her in the direction of the doorway back inside.  
  
"Uh-uh. You should have listened to your Mum and become a dental hygienist instead of an evil scientist bent on world domination," a male voice, accented with London tones, spoke as if right in front of them. The air shimmered and two figures appeared, the man who'd spoken, and a woman dressed in a red bodysuit with a black cloak covering her body and face. She drew back the hood on her cloak.  
  
"Long time no see, Caroline," The Mezmerizer greeted her old nemesis. "I should have known that your hand would be in this somewhere. Only you would be mad enough to let a man like that run free."  
  
"No. Mezmerizer? But how? You died in the lab. I had proof!" DreamWeb's eyes went wide when confronted with the only person on this orb that she feared.  
  
"You should know better than to listen to such pixie tales," Badlands spoke. "You are, after all, such a powerful and clever woman."  
  
The sarcasm in his voice rallied DreamWeb. Her blood boiled again. She glowed with her pink light and held her arms above her head. A web of silver appeared between her hands. She cast it outward at Badlands.  
  
Before either of them could react a huge wind sprang up out of nowhere. The web was blown away and to the ground, where it could do no harm.  
  
"It's about bloody time you put in an appearance," Badlands spoke to someone just above the heads of the two New Realm members.  
  
"I had to stop and powder my nose," Whirlwind told them. She was floating with her arms crossed, inside a small tornado. "And I hate to point this out to you, but while you were playing with these two, the other two got away."  
  
"What?" Badlands scanned the rooftop.  
  
"Where'd they go?" Glow asked. She'd flown after Shield as soon as Badlands and Mez had interfered. She landed back on the rooftop with her brother next to her, the danger from the falling satellite dish neutralized.  
  
"That way. Towards the boardwalk and the docks," Whirlwind pointed.  
  
"They escaped with out us!" Checkmate tore off his lab coat and grabbed DreamWeb, carrying her in his arms. He ran right for the edge of the building and leapt without a second look. A small pack on his back opened revealing glider wings. Checkmate sailed easily, with DreamWeb as his passenger.  
  
The four cried with alarm and moved into action, Shield following belatedly.  
  
"Whirlwind! Go after Magneto and hairy boy. Badlands, Mez, with me after DreamWeb and Mr. Over-protective," Glow barked her orders.  
  
"What about me sis? I owe them," Shield said.  
  
She studied her brother for the briefest of moments. "With Whirlwind. Be careful, Magneto's powers are almost the same as yours. Leave him to my teammate and take the big ugly guy."  
  
He nodded once and flew after the woman in blue, raising a shield around him to buffer the wind she was kicking up. 


	15. Enter the Future Part Fifteen

"Looks like we got to the party a little bit too late," Wolverine said as he watched the scene below them from the Blackbird's main window.  
  
"There's such a thing as being fashionably late, Logan," Storm told them. "We must get those people under cover. They don't know the danger they're in."  
  
Storm's eyes unfocused and turned white as she summoned her power. Clouds rolled in from out of nowhere and rain began pouring down on the unaware patrons of the boardwalk and casino. People began to run into the nearest buildings in an effort to get out of the rain.  
  
"Good work Storm," Cyclops said. "They're damp, but they're as safe as they can be."  
  
"What the hell?" Badlands looked up as the downpour started. "Where did this come from?"  
  
"I think I know," Glow said wearily. "And it means one of two things."  
  
"Like what?" Badlands shouted to her over the sound of the rain.  
  
"Either the cavalry's here or we're in for a whole heap of trouble."  
  
"Hope it's the first," Mez put in.  
  
The rain did have a bonus effect besides getting the civilians under cover. It tore through the wings on Checkmate's pack, sending himself and DreamWeb plummeting to the ground.  
  
Nearing the docks, Magneto heard the rain coming and looked up in time to be bathed in the torrent. Sabertooth looked up as well and growled. They both knew well what that sudden storm meant.  
  
"Well, Charles. You finally decided to get off your rear end and do something," Magneto spoke to the unseen enemy.  
  
"It's really creepy when men as old as you start talking to yourself," Whirlwind said, swooping down on them. Before the two could even react, Whirlwind had started a tornado, widening it to accept the rainwater streaming down. Turning it into a waterspout she hurled it at Magneto, sweeping him off his feet and nearly out to sea.  
  
Sabertooth's sheer bulk and firm grip on the docking moor and his leader were the only thing that kept that attack from killing Magneto.  
  
"Oh, I don't think so," Sabertooth yelled as he pulled the older man back onto the dock and charged for Whirlwind who flew easily out of his way.  
  
Sabertooth tried to pull in his charge before his target got clean away but was halted mid-stride, surrounded by a glowing blue bubble. Shield flew into view; taking the force shield he'd surrounded the henchman with, and hurled it away from him. It skipped down the beach like a pebble over water. Shield tossed him into the side of a lifeguard's metal tower. The structure crumbled and folded in on top of the savage.  
  
"Oh hell! Badlands! Witch woman at ten o'clock," Glow shouted.  
  
"I see her!" The air warped as he moved into super speed to catch DreamWeb as she fell.  
  
"I've got the other one!" Glow yelled. "Somewhere up there is a telepath named Jean Grey! Mez, tell her to get Storm to turn off the waterworks. They're making this harder for us, not easier."  
  
The Mezmerizer nodded once and cast her eyes upward.  
  
Inside the Blackbird Jean gasped. Her eyes grew wide and she stammered something incoherent. When she turned to her companions they noted her pupils were wide and dilated.  
  
"Glow says to turn off the weather. And The Mezmerizer wants to know when we're going to get off our asses and help them kick Magneto's butt."  
  
"Good enough invitation to me," Wolverine said, extracting his claws.  
  
Cyclops evaluated the mood of his team quickly. "All right, Storm, call off the rains. I'm taking us down."  
  
Cyclops set the Blackbird down right on the waters next to the dock where Magneto had Whirlwind at a standoff. Magneto had his back to the boardwalk shops and Whirlwind was now over the docks.  
  
The older mutant was tearing off bits and pieces of the shops on the boardwalk and of the boats around them and hurling them at the woman. Whirlwind was hard pressed to catch the shrapnel in her tornado and didn't dare risk flinging it back for fear of hurting the few people still milling around in the shops. She could see the frightened faces of men, women, and God help them, children gazing out of the shop windows.  
  
"Isn't that just like you young people? Never willing to make a few sacrifices," Magneto taunted her.  
  
"Sacrifice this," Cyclops called out just before hitting Magneto in the chest with an optic blast.  
  
Whirlwind, able to let down her guard, guided the tornado filled with shrapnel over her head and out to sea where it harmlessly dissipated, leaving the salvage floating in the rough waves.  
  
"Much obliged Stranger," Whirlwind breathed a sigh of relief.  
  
"Save it. That's not going to keep him down for long - I couldn't use full power with so many." Cyclops started a lecture.  
  
"Civilians around, I know. I know," she cut him off. "Why do you think I was holding a level F3 tornado intact for so damned long? That's not easy to do you know."  
  
"Sorry," Cyclops was slightly taken aback but had no further chance to respond.  
  
Magneto came flying up out of the rubble he'd fallen into and landed a scant twenty feet from them. "So, you want to play? Very well, children. We'll play as long as you mind your manners."  
  
"Does he think everyone on this planet is younger than him?" she asked.  
  
"Don't know," Cyclops said as he fired another optic blast only to have it repelled by Magneto's force field of magnetic energy. "Right about now I don't think it matters."  
  
Badlands managed to catch DreamWeb from falling to her death only to have to twist away from her before she could touch him with one of her webs of psychokinetic energy that would have enabled her to control him as she had Glow's brother.  
  
"Well that's gratitude for ya," Badlands snorted as he dropped her flat on her rear and returned to his wife's side.  
  
"This is an outrage!" DreamWeb shrieked.  
  
"Not exactly Miss Congeniality, is she?" asked Storm, coming up alongside Badlands and The Mezmerizer.  
  
"Glad to see you could join the fun," Mez said.  
  
DreamWeb used the brief exchange to charge another psychokinetic energy web and throw it at them. Jean Grey held it in place with her telekinesis.  
  
"Thought you could use a hand," Jean said, not taking her eyes off the web as she sent it back in the direction of its creator.  
  
"The more the merrier I always say," Badlands grinned as DreamWeb dodged the web of her own making.  
  
"I wonder if that silver collar of hers is truly metal," Jean asked.  
  
"I don't know," Storm replied. "Let's find out."  
  
Static electricity flew from her, raising her white hair as she summoned a lightning bolt. The bolt flew off her fingers and hit DreamWeb in her middle. The other woman screamed and jerked stiffly for a moment before collapsing.  
  
"Nice job," Badlands commented.  
  
"Thank you," Storm said sociably.  
  
"Question: where'd Glow and Checkmate go?"  
  
"And where's Logan?" Jean asked, suddenly looking around them.  
  
A blot of blue light shot past the orange-haired woman and she screamed in frustration.  
  
"How many different powers do you have with that stupid belt?" Glow shouted at him. "And why wasn't I given a list?!?"  
  
Glow had caught the heavier man but had only been able to slow his decent, not stop it altogether. She'd lost her hold on him only eight feet above the ground, but he'd tumbled from her hands to the beach's sands in time to turn and face her down. Using his belt to give and control a variety of abilities he succeeded in frustrating Glow. The woman didn't know when she was supposed to defend herself and when to attack. Some of the powers built into that neat little belt were deadly to her, and depending on the mode, her own power wouldn't have any effect.  
  
"I believe the lady had an interest in this little piece of fashion," a gruff voice spoke in Checkmate's ear.  
  
The scientist froze as he heard the *snikt* of metal being extracted next to his neck and waist. He froze as he felt three blades being pressed against the back of his collar. Checkmate slowly held up his hands and kept them away from his power belt. With a quick swipe of his claws, Wolverine relieved the villain of his belt and tossed it out into the darkness.  
  
"What are you going to do to me?" Checkmate asked.  
  
"Well that depends on what the lady says," Wolverine told him.  
  
Glow answered by charging her power up and pointing her finger at Checkmate's chest. "You'd better get out of the way Wolverine. I don't want to go back on my promise."  
  
He backed away and moved to the side swiftly and silently. Checkmate moved surprisingly fast for someone of his size. He bolted and Glow's shot went astray. She fired three more times in rapid succession. Checkmate managed by some cursed luck to dodge each one and run for it.  
  
Glow and Wolverine were on his heels but he beat them to the fallen body of DreamWeb. He swept the unconscious woman up and ran for Magneto's location.  
  
"BADLANDS!"  
  
"On it fearless leader!" he shouted as he launched himself at Checkmate.  
  
"Stop calling me that!" Glow thundered after him. She pulled up short and stopped running. She held her sides panting, "I fly to much and run too little."  
  
"Wouldn't have expected that from you," Logan said.  
  
"Wouldn't have expected you to help me like that," Glow still held her sides against the stitch in them, but drew her eyes up to hold his own black ones.  
  
He stiffened, but didn't say anything in response.  
  
"Glow!" The Mezmerizer called. "Checkmate's in the middle of the battle between Whirlwind, Magneto and your other friend."  
  
Storm, Mez, and Jean joined the group. "We can't find Sabertooth, or that red-haired guy."  
  
"Shield, my brother," Glow said. "He was facing off with the overgrown Ugly."  
  
"What's going on? There are only four of them. They shouldn't be getting by us this easily!" Badlands said as he reappeared before them.  
  
"I lost them! Can you believe it? ME, THE KING OF BLOODY SHADOWS! LOST THEM!" he ranted.  
  
"That's impossible. Mez, can you track them?" Glow asked as the entire group headed over to provide backup for Whirlwind and Cyclops.  
  
"GET DOWN!" Whirlwind screamed at the top of her lungs.  
  
"What the-?" Jean's eyes widened and she fell to the ground, flattening herself as much as possible.  
  
The others followed her example.  
  
The satellite dish had taken to the air again and soared overhead crashing into the side of the casino's main building. The sounds of screams could be heard as the building's structure creaked under the strain and part of the side started to fall in on itself.  
  
"Oh no," Glow muttered. "Is this day EVER going to end?"  
  
Magneto was currently picking up a small metal shack that up until that moment sold souvenir seashells.  
  
"Are we tired of our little games so soon?" Magneto called out to the heroes.  
  
"Storm, he's holding a giant lightning rod," Glow whispered. "I use my power, I light up like a Christmas tree and give him warning. You use your power."  
  
"Right."  
  
The white-haired woman unfocused her eyes as she called back the earlier storm in order to summon the lightning that could render Magneto helpless. She never got to deal the final blow. Magneto suddenly disappeared and the shack dropped to the beach front, raining seashells everywhere.  
  
Glow put her head down in the sand and heaved a great sigh.  
  
"We blew it. Our first mission in over 19 years that we've blown."  
  
"It was bound to happen sooner or later, fearless leader," Badlands said.  
  
"Michael if you call me that one more time, I swear I'm going to pump you so full of 'tricity that you'll be unconscious for the rest of your life," Glow growled from her seat.  
  
"Come on, we need to get out of here, and now," Cyclops ordered, coming over to them with Whirlwind walking besides him. "The locals have called in the police. Some of them are already here."  
  
"Right." Jean got to her feet, dusting herself off as she helped Storm to her feet. Whirlwind pulled Badlands and Mez up. Glow offered a hand up to Wolverine. He looked at her hand for a minute as if seeing a viper. She slumped her shoulders and would have pulled her hand back when he reached out and grasped it. She pulled him to his feet.  
  
"We've got to get back to the jet," Cyclops said, looking at The Tech Team leader. "Are you coming?"  
  
Glow glanced at Mez who shook her head slightly. Glow turned back to Cyclops, "A ride home would be great. Mez doesn't have enough energy left to teleport us again. Not over that distance."  
  
Jean turned and looked startled at the tiny woman in the black cloak. Mez returned her gaze with an even, calm one of her own. 


	16. Enter the Future Part Sixteen

They made their way to the Blackbird only to find Shield sitting on one of the wings.  
  
"I figured someone would have to come back here sooner or later," he said, holding one of his sides.  
  
"Russell!" Glow ran and fell to her knees by his side. "You're hurt."  
  
"That big guy moves faster than you'd think," Russ grinned, and immediately regretted it. "He's got nasty claws too."  
  
Cyclops opened the door of the jet and helped Glow pick her brother up and carry him inside. Glow sat next to her brother, trying to make him as comfortable as possible. She steadfastly refused to even glance in Wolverine's direction, even though the dark-haired Canadian stared at her openly. None of this exchange was lost on Russell. When everyone was situated Cyclops sat down in the pilot's seat.  
  
"Hang on!" The Mezmerizer looked to Glow. "I've still got enough energy to do crowd control. Shall I?"  
  
Glow got up from where she was, leaned over Scott to look out the window at the crowd gathering around the rescue vehicles. "All right, if you think you can get everyone. Let them think they were the victims of some freak storm, between Storm and 'Rory's powers that's true enough for them to accept."  
  
The Mezmerizer sat on the floor of the jet and assumed the lotus position, folding her hands across her forehead she began to glow and pulsate with red and gold light. The light expanded out briefly and then snapped back inside her.  
  
"You'll love this," Whirlwind leaned over to Storm conspiratorially. "The evening news will have their weather men going nuts trying to figure out why they didn't know that a storm was going to hit. No one will link this to mutants."  
  
The X-Men looked back at Mez and then to Glow.  
  
"It's what makes us the best secret operations team out there," Glow said, voice slightly defensive. "No one knows we exist. And in this case, I think it would be better if no one knows you do either."  
  
"All right, let's go home," Cyclops said.  
  
No one really spoke on the way back to the Westchester Mansion, although there were quiet murmurings from the back where Glow and Shield sat. Small wonder the siblings had a lot to talk about; it had been thirty-three years since they'd last seen each other. Badlands and the Mezmerizer had fallen asleep holding hands. Whirlwind's eyes never stopped moving, taking in every detail of the jet and of its passengers. She spent a lot of time staring at Wolverine, who shifted uncomfortably under her look. Once in a while she'd glance back towards Glow and Shield and shake her head, as if unbelieving of the situation.  
  
The welcome they received when they landed back at the mansion's hanger was much different than the last one they'd received. The only one there to greet them was Professor Charles Xavier. The tired mutants disembarked the aircraft, moving slowly. Tired from the fight, tired from the long day, and in some cases wounded, they filed out of the Blackbird and lined up in front of the X-Men's founder.  
  
Glow walked off the plane with her brother leaning on her shoulder for support. She looked at Xavier and spoke before anyone else could.  
  
"Lecture me later," she told him. "My brother was seriously injured fighting Sabertooth. Whirlwind might not want to show it, but I think something happened to her wrist. Badlands pulled his shoulder. Mez is going to have a stress-reaction headache the size of the Rocky Mountains if she doesn't get some painkillers and sleep - my fault, I let her do too much - and I, I think I broke a rib and breathed too much of Checkmate's poisoned gas."  
  
"By all means we will deal with your injuries before anything else," Xavier motioned for Jean to aid them.  
  
"Jean needs medical treatment too," Glow said surprising them all with her statement. "She's limping, in case no one's noticed, most likely, she twisted her ankle. It's probably from when we had to duck and cover as Magneto threw small buildings at us. Storm hit her head then too, so she should be checked for concussion. I think Cyclops is okay, and the only one to walk away unscathed is of course, Wolverine."  
  
"How did you know?" Cyclops asked. Now that he knew what to look for, he saw that Jean wasn't putting any weight on her left leg as she stood. He put her arm over his shoulder to support her, hearing her sigh with relief as he bore the brunt of her weight.  
  
"A good leader knows how to read his or her team. To judge what they're capable of, when to pull them in, and when to let them overexert or even sacrifice themselves for the greater good."  
  
Glow began to shuffle slowly towards the hanger's door, carrying her brother. "Come on, the medical unit is this way."  
  
Her team silently followed her out, the X-Men leaving after them just as quietly.  
  
As it turned out, Whirlwind had the most serious injury with a broken wrist on her left arm. She took it with good grace complaining that it happened all the time and asking everyone to sign her cast. Fortunately, Shield's wounds were superficial and looked worse than they really were due to the fact that head and face wounds tend to bleed more. He'd have an interesting scar pattern for a while though. Glow's rib was not broken, merely bruised and an hour of breathing pure oxygen on a tank took care of the leftover poison from Checkmate's little belt-of-wonders. Badlands' shoulder had been pulled when he was forced to twist away from DreamWeb at such high speeds. Two shots of painkillers and a lot of sleep restored him to his usual good humor. Mez was silent, reverting to sign language to speak with her team because she did not want to bring back a stress headache by using her mental powers too soon. It shocked the rest of the X- Men to learn that she was mute. Xavier and Jean both knew some sign language, but not enough to communicate efficiently. They relied on Badlands to translate.  
  
The next few days in the mansion were subdued, even among the younger students. The kids had all seen the news footage of the aftermath of the storm at the Tropical Forest Casino and Resort. None of them believed that it was just a freak tornado and storm that caused that kind of damage though, not with the way the adults were acting, and with the extra houseguests that had suddenly appeared. Bobby, Kitty, Jubilee, and Rogue hovered an uneasy distance away from Glow and her friends. Likewise, they kept their distance from Wolverine, who'd taken to following Glow around when he thought she didn't notice.  
  
Finally, it was Rogue who broke the silence in this uneasy truce between the two teams.  
  
"Glow?" Rogue called as she walked up to the older woman slowly. Glow, dressed in a swimsuit borrowed from Storm, lay on a lawn chair a ways from the pool where her brother was swimming laps to rebuild his strength. The siblings had been nearly inseparable since their reunion.  
  
The orange-haired woman looked up from the book that Storm had lent her to the young woman before her. "Yes Rogue?"  
  
"Can I talk to you?"  
  
Glow motioned for her to take Russell's empty seat next to her own. As she sat down, Rogue cleared her throat.  
  
"I just wanted to ask you a question," she said, and then paused. The other woman waited. "I mean, I wanted to know - why'd you come here in the first place? Logan said something about you being a mercenary on a secret mission but.I don't know what to believe."  
  
Glow marked her place in the novel and closed the book, setting it in her lap. She stared at the title on the cover as if it held her answers. Finally she replied, "I came here to get information on a man that hurt my friends and I and countless others for years. We've been trying to track this man down for over a decade to put a stop to what he does-harming mutants in the name of science."  
  
"Then you were just using Logan to get access to the computers so you could track this guy," Rogue whispered, sounding horrified.  
  
"Not quite. It's true, I used him to get in here," Glow admitted, hanging her head in shame. "But that was it, I swear. I would never deliberately hurt someone who had never hurt me. Logan, I don't know, Logan just sorta reminded me of myself."  
  
She put her head back against the chair and stared up into the sky. "He'd suffered so much at the hands of F.T.L.'s affiliates. Just like I suffered at the hands of F.T.L. I thought I understood his pain, I thought he understood mine. I did what I had to in order ensure the safety of my team and our mission to avenge the deaths of 154 mutants."  
  
"I'm sorry if he feels I betrayed him. I truly never meant to."  
  
Glow reopened her book and stared blankly at the page, signaling to Rogue that the conversation was over. Rogue sat for a moment digesting what she'd been told and studied Glow from the corners of her eyes. The pages of the book had small wet drops on it. Glow's cheeks were damp. Rogue felt her heart soften as she realized that the older woman was crying. Leaning over she brushed one tear away from Glow's cheek with a velvet- gloved hand. Rogue squeezed her shoulder in silent support, got up, and walked back inside where her friends were waiting.  
  
Russell stood to one side, uncertain of what to do. He'd gotten out of the pool when he saw the kid approach his sister and meant to intervene, but something had stopped him. He'd listened, mindful that he was eavesdropping, but needing to know more about the woman his sister had grown into. He remembered her as a boisterous, open young girl, a bit on the tomboyish side, rather bright, but not willing to apply herself. This quiet, introverted, brilliant but driven woman before him frightened him a little. This woman was a warrior who kept her own counsel. She'd developed an acid tongue and a sarcastic sense of humor as a shield of her own. Sara had talked to him somewhat of the labs she grew up in, but even that had to be dragged out of her.  
  
At last he moved towards her, grabbing the towel from his chair and flopping down on it, drying his hair. "So, what did the munchkin want?"  
  
"You know, you were listening."  
  
That gave him pause; he didn't realize she'd known he was there. He stopped and thought about it for a moment longer and realized that the bond they had as siblings, and mutants, had been slowly reestablishing itself. In the back of his mind he could once again feel her, as no doubt she could sense him as well. Time and distance between them had faded that odd link, but it was once again present. They'd always know where the other was.  
  
"I heard," he admitted. "And I saw enough during that fight with that witch woman and her allies to know that you like this guy, the one they call Wolverine."  
  
"Logan. His name is Logan, Wolverine is just his code name," Sara said stiffly, trying to change the topic.  
  
"Okay, Logan, then. You like him. He seems to be attracted to you to," Russ stated, amiably. "So why don't you give him the benefit of the doubt and talk to him? The best he can do is forgive you, the worst he can do is not. Either way, you'll know and won't have to kill yourself wondering 'what if?'"  
  
"I scarcely doubt he wants to talk to me. He runs every time I enter the same room with him," Sara said, closing her book again and turning to face her brother.  
  
"That's because he doesn't want you to know he's been following you around, trying to sort out what's in his head," Russ said as he stretched out on the chair, tucking the towel under his head a pillow, "I mean, I know the guy's no Andy Clemmings but."  
  
"Andy who?" His sister sat straight up, swinging her legs off the chair and onto the patio's surface.  
  
"You remember Andy Clemmings. The one true love of your life... You used to play basketball with him!" Russ teased.  
  
"Him? Russ, we were twelve! He used to irritate me by following me everywhere," she said, staring at him aghast.  
  
"Well, what can I say?" Russ grinned that evil grin that only big brothers can get away with when they torture their younger siblings. "You were a heartbreaker even back then."  
  
Sara shrieked with pretended indignation and swung her book at her brother. He ducked her blow and tumbled out of the chair. She tore after him in full chase around the pool. He halted mid-stride letting her run into him and grabbed her in one of his force-shield bubbles. She threw her shoulder against it shouting at him to put her down. So he did, when she was floating over the middle of the pool.  
  
Sara surfaced, sputtering, incensed, and looking like a drowned rat. "I swear Russell Matthew McLain, I'll get you for this!"  
  
"Oh! She used all three of my names! I'm scared!" the older man laughed, feeling twenty years younger now that he'd made his sister act more like herself.  
  
"What the-?"  
  
Three sets of hands pushed him off the pool's edge and into the water. Standing where he'd just been, stood Bobby, Kitty, and Jubilee. Rogue ran up to them dressed in a full-body wet suit.  
  
"Aw, I missed the best part already!" Rogue pouted.  
  
"You don't have to," Jubilee cried gleefully as she pushed Rogue into the water. Kitty pushed the Asian girl in, but Jubilee had the last laugh when she pulled the brown-haired girl in with her.  
  
Russell surfaced behind his sister and dunked her. She surfaced behind him and pushed him under. After that there was a free-for-all as the girls ganged up on Shield.  
  
"HEY! Help! The men have to stick together!" he called to the blonde boy still on the pool's edge.  
  
"No! Wait Russ!" Sara shouted. "You don't know his power!"  
  
It was too late, encouraged Bobby took a running start and cannonballed into the pool.  
  
The water froze almost instantaneously. Russell, Sara, Jubilee, Kitty, Rogue, and Bobby himself were stuck.  
  
"Sorry," Bobby said sheepishly.  
  
"It's okay kid," Sara said. "Kitty? Do you think you can go get Storm or John? We're going to need some help evaporating this."  
  
"Uh, sure." Kitty's eyes unfocused for a moment and her image wavered as she began to move through the solid block of ice. She climbed back on the patio deck, turned solid again and ran for the house.  
  
Sara surrounded herself with her yellow halo, using the heat of her electricity to start melting the water around her. She sighed, "This is almost where I came in."  
  
Russell looked puzzled but the other girls giggled.  
  
Cyclops came out of the mansion with John on his heels. "What happened here?"  
  
"Um, early frost?" Glow looked at him as innocently as she could.  
  
"Right." He turned back to the teenager behind him. "Do you think you can control the fire enough to melt the edges?"  
  
"I can try," John gulped at the thought of having to melt the entire pool.  
  
"Then hurry up and try!" Jubilee called. "I'm losing feeling in my legs!"  
  
"Too bad it's not your brain," Rogue retorted.  
  
"If we weren't' frozen solid I'd dunk you."  
  
Glow sighed and applied more power to melt herself out faster. 


	17. Enter the Future Part Seventeen/Final Ch...

The fiasco at the pool broke down all the tensions that had been running rampant on the campus. The noise level of the numerous teens in the school returned to its usual buzz and everyone walked easier around each other. The Mezmerizer even began to teach a class on sign language with her husband. She also worked with Jean on developing long-range communication without needing Cerebro's amplification. The Future Tech Team had arrived as guests but now they were welcome guests. The only two who still danced around each other were Sara and Logan.  
  
"Hey," Sara said, catching the Canadian completely off guard. He'd been standing in the courtyard watching Scott teach his class on mechanics. He whirled to face her, unconsciously tensing.  
  
"Hey," he replied.  
  
"I just wanted to let you know that Jean says that 'Rory's wrist is finally knitting the way it should be. We'll be leaving soon," she told him.  
  
"That's good," he said, then quickly amended, "That her wrist is healing."  
  
"Also, I just wanted you to know that I am sorry I used to get in here," Sara said softly, broaching the subject as gently as she could.  
  
He grunted and started to turn away. "You did what you had to. Jean showed me those logs and I don't blame you for wanting to find that guy."  
  
She put her hand on his shoulder and forced him to turn and face her. "I am sorry, Logan. I'm sorry that I lied, and that I hurt you, but you have to know that I wasn't lying when I said that you were my first kiss."  
  
She swallowed and gathered her courage as he stared at her in open-eyed wonder, "And I'm not lying when I say that I hope you'll be my second kiss, and the third and forth."  
  
Sara never got to finish what she was saying. Logan took her in his arms, tilted her head back and kissed her. After what seemed like an endless amount of time, they finally broke the kiss, opened their eyes, and looked at each other. A small smile crept over her face, returned in his eyes.  
  
Hooting, hollering, and catcalls sprang up from Scott's class. Logan never let go of Sara's waist as they turned and confronted the class of kids and their teacher.  
  
"Would you mind taking that inside?" Scott called to them. "You're interrupting our work."  
  
Glow heard the snikt of Logan extracting his claws and looked at him with mild alarm. She saw only a single middle claw up in the direction of the red-haired man. "Logan, there are kids over there!" She pushed his hand down and he retracted his claw, allowing himself to be pulled inside the foyer by her.  
  
Something jingled, like the faint sound of metal on metal. The silver around Sara's neck caught his attention and he fingered the dog tags on the simple bead chain.  
  
When he saw his own code name on the tags he asked, "Where did you get these?"  
  
"Rogue gave them to me. She said it means I have to come back." Sara blushed and covered the tags with her hand. "Did you want them back?"  
  
"Nah, keep them. Just make sure you do come back when your business is done." He leaned over her and kissed her again.  
  
When they separated she leaned against his shoulder. "I'm horrible at goodbyes. Michael should be back any second now with the rented car. We're all headed up to Russell's home back in Maine where we grew up. I left the number with Storm, in case you ever feel like talking."  
  
She ran out of words, and so did he. Finally he managed a decent bluster, "Well, it's been days, but I can still smell New Jersey on me. I think I'll go take a shower."  
  
"You do that," Sara said with a smile.  
  
He looked at her suspiciously before he walked away.  
  
Badlands showed up with the rental jeep sooner than anyone had expected. Everyone turned out to say good-bye to the Tech Team, except Logan who was in the shower, and oddly enough, Kitty and Bobby.  
  
Xavier sat in his wheelchair at the entranceway to the mansion with his adult students surrounding him, the teenage ones flanking the driveway. Russell and Michael were already fighting outside the jeep over who got to drive, not noticing that The Mezmerizer sat behind the wheel with Whirlwind navigating in the front passenger's seat.  
  
Glow stood before the X-Men, shaking Xavier's hand. "I want to thank you again for your help and hospitality. I also want to apologize again."  
  
"Enough with the apologies. You owe us none, although we certainly owe you many," Xavier said with an air of irony. "You have taught us many things about working together and responsibility that we didn't take as seriously before. You also seem to have, however unwittingly, organized some our younger pupils as well, and gotten them to work together better than they ever have before."  
  
"I just want them to be able to have what I didn't," she said modestly. "That's all."  
  
Before anyone could make a reply, Bobby Drake came skidding up the hallway to Glow. He handed her a camera.  
  
"Here's the Polaroid you wanted. And it's full of film," he panted, trying to catch his breath.  
  
"Good man!" Glow clapped him on the back. "Now, where's our reconnaissance officer?"  
  
"Right here!" Kitty floated through the ceiling and lowered herself to the floor. "He's in the second story bathroom in the west wing hallway. I unlocked the door but didn't peek, I promise!"  
  
"Good work team!" Glow called over her shoulder as she flew up the stairs and in the direction Kitty had indicated.  
  
"What's she doing?" Jean asked.  
  
"I believe it's called payback," Xavier said sounding amused.  
  
The entire group heard Logan's outraged roar and Glow's wicked laughter.  
  
"WHY YOU! GET BACK HERE WITH THOSE!" Logan hollered.  
  
Glow came pelting down the stairs and took flight out the door with Logan hot on her heels, only his towel wrapped around his waist. He followed her out the door and into the courtyard, but it was too late. Glow was already in the back seat of the jeep, waving at him with a photo-stuffed hand as Mez speed down the driveway.  
  
"Bye Logan! Remember to call!" Glow shouted. She turned and sat down in the jeep, her voice still carrying as she continued to tease her new romantic interest. "So how much do you think I can get for these on E- Bay?"  
  
Logan conceded defeat. He turned around and ignored the snickers and laughter from the staff and students alike. Walking back into the mansion he stopped only to spear a stray photograph that Glow had dropped with a single claw, pulling it away from Jubilee. He grumbled all the way up the stairs and back to his shower.  
  
When completely out of eyesight, Xavier who'd been controlling himself very well, burst into laughter that almost doubled him over.  
  
"Professor?" Jean asked with a smile on her own face.  
  
"I'll be fine, Jean." Xavier wiped the tears of laughter from his face. "I wasn't so sure that an alliance with the Future Tech Team would be a good thing, but I do have to admit, they've brought a life to us that we haven't had in a long time."  
  
"I'm not so sure that an alliance with the Brotherhood of Mutants is such a good thing." Checkmate bathed a washcloth in warm water and placed it over the forehead of his leader, DreamWeb.  
  
"Hush, David. We were ill prepared for the X-Men and for the reappearance of the Future Tech Team. We need to know more about these X-Men, and the best way of doing that is to get in good with Magneto," DreamWeb reassured him. "Our stay at his stronghold is only temporary. He needs me, my money, and my new associate-Dr. DeLeon."  
  
She removed the cloth from her head and sat up, laying a reassuring hand on Checkmate's arm. "If Magneto hopes to rebuild what he lost at their hands and to continue his plan of unifying mutant kind, then he will need the machine that Dr. DeLeon is currently working on. It is most fortunate that even after that beast robbed you of your weapons belt, you still had the invisibility belt that Shield gave back to you. Without it we would not have been able to escape, and that places them in our debt further. They know they would not have lived without your intervention. You have done very well David. When we return to the headquarters of the New Realm you shall be rewarded."  
  
Checkmate still looked uneasy. "I don't like this. I don't trust them, and I don't like how much stronger The Mezmerizer has gotten. Allying ourselves with the enemies of her friends may prove our undoing."  
  
"You worry too much," DreamWeb said as she lay back down and motioned for him to freshen the cloth and put it back on. She still had a headache from using so much of her psychokinetic energy. "We are The New Realm, the only mafia controlled solely by mutants. We are more powerful and dangerous than Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants. He's in this for a cause. We're in it for a cut of the action."  
  
If he still had any doubts, David Devine -otherwise known as Checkmate - kept them to himself as he tended to his mistress. It did seem to him though; that the bare stonewalls of Magneto's stronghold resembled a prison more than a place where peace and money could be won. DreamWeb dozed and he stood guard over her, as always.  
  
  
  
The End 


End file.
